Into the Fray, Unflinching
by gldngrl7
Summary: Story 5 in the "Hanging On, Letting Go" series. Follows "Edging Toward Synchronicity". Please heed all Author's Notes/Tags! SYNOPSIS: Unconscious following his meltdown, Mon-El is trapped inside his own mind. Kara must take extreme measures to reach him before he slips out of her reach and is lost forever. But does he even want to return to her?
1. Chapter 1

Title: **Into the Fray, Unflinching**

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: 20+

Feedback: Encouragement is always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

 **Author's Notes/TAGS:** This is story is heavy erotica with some plot. If you had even a little difficulty getting through any of the previous stories than don't even start this one. This story is beyond anything I've ever written and pushes all of my boundaries. Please heed these warnings. It deals with a lot of sexual elements that many people may have problems with.

Please don't read if you have a problem with the following elements/kinks: heterosexual sex, rough sex, public sex, anal sex, vaginal sex, orgiastic sex, oral sex, m/m/f threesome, spit-roasting, double penetration, spanking, light degradation and dirty talk (liberal use of the words whore, pussy, cunt, slut), cock rings, cock worship, COUSs (cocks of unusual size), cock and ball torture, cum worship, breeding kink, genital slapping, voyeurism, exhibitionism, punishment, orgasm withholding, and orgasms as punishment.

Sex toys and accoutrements included (but not limited to) are: submissive harness, kegel balls, anal beads, anal hooking, spreader bars, wrist cuffs, nipple clamps, St. Andrews cross, submissive bench. Specific role-playing kinks include Master/Slave and Predator/Prey, some DD/lg kink. Mentions of underage and age difference sex which is only included for backstory to more clearly demonstrate Daxamite culture. I neither encourage or condone those things.

 _ **WARNING:**_ Some elements of this story may trigger those who have been in abusive relationships, especially where sex was used as a weapon. My intent with this story is NOT to demonstrate that this type of power exchange is for everyone. It's most assuredly NOT. However, my intent, rather, is to show that behavior led by one's id and unchecked by the ego, creates a state of imbalance that can create and unhealthy balance in a BDSM relationship. Do not read, if you may find it triggering.

Chapter 1/?

 _Flags upon the floor_

 _And on this cold war_

 _Battle torn_

 _Soldiers fold_

 _Lay down your arms_

 _Losing all control_

 _And down this rabbit hole_

 _Lost souls letting go_

 _-Banners - "Back When We Had Nothing"_

"Nooooooo!" he screams, watching helplessly as a chunk of heavy stone caves in the skull of his best friend. Mon-El stands beneath the cell's reinforced doorframe leading to the stairs to the ground floor, in relative safety as the ground shakes beneath his feet. His hands clench tightly, unable to tear his eyes from the crushed foot peeking out from the rubble, a stream of blood making its way out from beneath.

And then the room explodes, rumbling from another meteor strike, this one a direct hit to the building and not just the nearby grounds. The stone ceiling gives way, dropping the remains of the room above into the cell, like a shower of death and destruction. He narrowly misses getting caught in the downpour by diving through the doorway and into the stairwell, which shakes but remains relatively intact.

He needs to escape before the entire building caves in on them… _him_ …or risk being buried under the rubble like Ral. He loses his footing several times as he climbs the stairs. At the top, he finds the ancient iron door, at first, unwilling to budge. He angles his shoulder upwards and puts his entire body weight into the next shove, earning a few inches of opening for his efforts. One more and he might be able to squeeze through.

The next shove brings success and after some heavy resistance the door yields as though it had only been teasing and wished to make amends. Mon-El falls to the floor as he loses his balance, landing face first in the speared corpse of a prison guard. People must have panicked when the mayhem began, crawling over each other to get out, killing anyone who got in their way. From the looks of it…he was murdered by one of his own.

Scrambling to his feet, he makes his way out of the palace dungeons, where the king likes to keep his most prized prisoners. Likes to hear their screams as they're tortured. If it's quiet enough in the main hall, the screams drift up during the evening meal, providing a background music that brings a sickening smile to the king's face.

In the main hall, so close to the exit, to freedom, he discovers the damage done there is catastrophic. More than half of the walls have collapsed, revealing outside a red sky streaked with meteors while the floor of the main hall looks like war zone, littered with debris and bodies. Perhaps people seeking refuge in the great hall hoping the palace would keep them safe from the wrath of the gods that visits them now.

He picks his way through the stone and flames, the smell of charred flesh stinging his nostrils and forcing him to breathe through his mouth, until he hears a weak voice calling out for help. Mon-El looks around for the source of the sound but is unable to pinpoint its location. Another tremble beneath his feet has him reaching for something to steady himself and he glances toward the nearest exit. Another weak call draws his attention again.

He's already been forced to leave someone to die, can he live with another on his conscience?

Mon-El climbs over two piles of broken stone and several bodies before finding the source of the cry for help, just a grasping arm, reaching out through the rubble. Carefully, he moves aside a pile of debris, only to discover that it's _her_ he's attempting to rescue. She wears what was once her finest gown, as though fully expecting to meet her patronage at the end of the world.

"Why?" she asks, blood pouring down her face from the gash in her scalp. The falling stone had not been as kind to her as it had been to Ral, leaving her instead to linger in death.

"I don't understand," he says, shaking his head.

"He…he left me here. Left me here," she says, as though she's been repeating the thought over and over in her head, like a data-crystal with a glitch. Her lips quiver with the flood of adrenaline her body releases as it attempts to keep her conscious and alive. "Left me here." Then she looks up, her bloody face changing as she truly sees him for the first time. She takes a deep breath, one of her last, and says, "I'm so sorry…I was too scared to say no."

"I know," he mumbles, though he still finds it hard to look at her. "It's all right. I don't blame you." He busies himself instead with trying to free her, looking for something to pry loose the larger stones under which she's buried.

"Too late," she says, her hand reaching to grab his arm.

"No," he insists, even though he knows that's stubborn denial speaking.

"This is my punishment."

It is this statement that angers him, that turns the helpless feeling of emptiness in his gut into a burning, boiling rage that resembles the fury of the skies above his head. And in this moment, he wants nothing more than to visit retribution on the man so good at getting his subjects to turn on themselves, even if just emotionally. "Where is he?" he demands of her. "Where has he gone?"

Her eyes widen, surprised by his fury. She gasps for air, her lungs gurgling now with blood as it bubbles up in the back of her throat. Too near death, the ability to speak now escapes her, leaving her only capable of pointing. Mon-El follows the direction of her finger to see another body. The deceased is unfamiliar to him, but the Kryptonian glyph on his uniform tells him everything he needs to know, as does the distinct weapons discharge burn on the man's face.

Mon-El reaches for her hand, taking it in his just before it drops to the ground. "I'm here," he promises, even as her eyes glaze over. Her lifeless grip held tightly in his strong one, he watches as the light fades entirely from her once-stunning eyes and her last breath gurgles out. He waits for another gasping wheeze, a last bid for life, but none is forthcoming and so he crosses her hand over her chest and leaves her.

As he steps over the remains of the Kryptonian he notices something clutched in the man's hand. Bending down, he pries the stiffening fingers open to pull out a data-crystal. Immediately, he recognizes its purpose and a tiny seed of hope sprouts in his chest. If his instincts about the king are correct, and they _always_ are, there may still be time. Time to make him pay for Ral's death. Time to give Ral's death some meaning.

Finding new resolve, Mon-El grips the crystal tightly in his hand, takes a weapon from the body of another dead guard and picks his way quickly out of the building until standing beneath a sky that's on fire. He's never been in a war zone like they had in the dark times, before wars were fought amongst the stars, and until today, there's been only the beautifully repurposed remains of the ancient palace to serve as reminder. Mon-El imagines that that the dark times, the day that palace fell, must have looked something like this. Green meteors, pieces of a dead planet, rain down striking Daxam unpredictably and without mercy. He takes off at run, in the direction of the nearby Embassy where the Kryptonian Emissary would have been required by protocol to land and quarter his pod. Likely, a larger ship, perhaps a dreadnought is in orbit somewhere, shadowed behind one of Daxam's three moons. It was just like Krypton to send an Emissary of peace, but provide military back-up; to offer one hand in truce, while keeping a proverbial knife stashed behind their backs.

They could never be trusted.

His feet fueled by rage, Mon-El ran. Dodging rock and secondary explosions, he leapt over the bodies of those beyond help and blocked out the voices of those crying out for assistance. There was nothing he could do for them. He couldn't help his own bond-brother, how could possibly help them? So he ran, so fast it felt as though his feet hardly touched the burning ground. So fast it was almost like flying.

Just as expected, Mon-El found the coward berating one of his guards for failing to gain entry to the hatch of the Kryptonian craft. A circle of bodies surrounds the pod, a cadre of people desperate to escape, who gambled on their chance to reach the vehicle, and lost.

"Missing something, Your _Majesty_?" Mon-El shouted, the title more of a curse than an honorific. He holds up the crystal he'd taken from the Kryptonian corpse, dangling it from the tip of his fingers like bait before a vexlar beast.

Even from this distance, Mon-El can see the mixture of hope and terror fill the king's eyes. The older man's steel gray eyes, identical to his own, narrow to slits as he turns to the guard keeping watch. "Get the crystal," he demands.

Unquestioningly, the guard raises his weapon and points it Mon-El, who does the same, his hand shaking only a little. "Give me the crystal," the guard commands, a slight tremor in his voice. He startles when another meteor strikes nearby with a deafening report, shaking the ground beneath them.

Mon-El shakes his head slowly. "Daxam falls," he tells the guard. "Will you die for this man? This tyrant?" He can see the man's eyes the moment, when the guard's resolve waivers. The weapon lowers and without a backwards glance the guard quits the field of battle, running as though towards something for which he is, in fact, willing to die.

A glance at the second guard, offering the same silent question, results in a similar desertion, but this time the guard drops his weapon at his feet before running away. The king scrambles to pick up the gun, and brandishes it at Mon-El without a second thought. Without his guards, his ministers of pain, he's the coward Mon-El always imagined him to be. The king is the coward Mon-El was always afraid he would become.

Mon-El grabs the barrel of the weapon, the king's fearful eyes widening, but instead of taking the weapon, he placed the barrel against his own forehead. "Yes," he seethes. "Kill me," his voice shouts, a vision of Ral's crushed skull flashing before his eyes. "Kill me now." Then with a terrible laugh he reminds him, "Your 'Last Hope'."

Mon-El can see the hesitancy on the older man's face. His Majesty isn't one for waste after all, not when it comes down to the ferrovanadium rivets. And after all the currency and effort and lives he had poured into ensuring the continuance of his dynasty, he couldn't just end it all right here without at least a second thought. He couldn't just pull the trigger and end more than 40 years of planning, not after all that he'd worked so hard to build. Especially not since his plan has yet to come to fruition.

Fortunately, for Mon-El, there is no such reluctance on his part. He isn't afraid of death and hasn't been for a long time. There were times, when things were at their worst, he prayed to gods he didn't believe in for his body to fail. Prayed that there was some hidden time bomb within him, some internal traitor that would turn against him and put a premature end to the king's plan. It would serve the tyrant right. But as always, time and time again, the tide turned in the king's favor.

Until now.

Despite his reluctance, given enough time to consider the alternatives the king will eventually realize that only one of them will survive this catastrophe, and when his mind reaches that conclusion, he will not hesitate to pull the trigger. But all it takes is that moment of indecision for Mon-El to make his move.

He knocks the weapon from the king's hand, practically breaking the old man's wrist in the process. Doubling over in pain, he cradles the injured appendage in his other hand, whimpering like the coward he is. A feeling of pleasure at seeing the old man in pain rises up within him and Mon-El shoves it back down into his deepest corners. That darkness is something Mon-El refuses to give its lead.

He points his weapon at the king's head, imagines pulling the trigger and watching his face melt off like the Kryptonian Emissary's – that face he hates so much but can never escape. Killing him now would bring meaning to Ral's death, would make his brother's suffering, the loss of his eyes, of his love and of the slow drain of his life, worth it. But it would be over for the king in a second and it wouldn't hit him where it hurts the most.

Hardly an even trade, without the barest hint of justice.

"You're not going anywhere," he decides. "You have a lot to answer for, and I'm here to make sure you do."

"Who do you think you are?" the king spits, still bent over. Around his neck dangles a chain with a delicate flat crystal attached.

"Exactly what you made me," Mon-El replies, reaching forward and grabbing the chain and tearing it free.

"No!" the king cries.

"For your crimes against your people, I sentence you to live as one of them…in the paradise you created. That is…if you can manage to survive the wrath of the gods." He punches the king square in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the ground, and Mon-El allows himself to feel that pleasure for a microsecond. "That was for Ral," he announces, as he slips the Royal Seal into his pants pocket.

Turning towards the Kryptonian pod, he swipes the first crystal against the outer panel of the pod, which chirps happily as though recognizing its passenger. The hatch opens and grasping the external frame Mon-El uses it as leverage to leap into the cockpit. As the hatch closes he tosses out the weapon and, through the clear canopy, surveys the ruins of the Capital City, a place he never learned to love, but is the only home he's ever known. He can't stay here, not if he plans to fulfill the last promise he made to Ral. He doesn't know how, or even what his brother meant, but he knows he must live, for Ral's sake, even if it means leaving so many others to die.

He glances down at the prostrate king, who scrambles for the weapon Mon-El discarded a moment before. He won't feel guilty about leaving him to his fate, not after all that he's done. It's better than he deserves, and so much kinder than the 'justice' he's extracted from others for crimes with far less impact. The king fires the weapon at the canopy, but to no effect. The pod, of course, is built to withstand the perils of outer space after all and is nearly indestructible by normal means.

He places his palm on the control panel and without plotting a course, he ignites the engines, the pod shaking in combination with the engines flaring to life and a meteor striking just a few yards away. It's a few breathless moments before he feels the pod lift-off. Still another moment before inertia becomes momentum and he's rocketing upwards at a steep angle, picking up speed in the ship's determination to break through the atmosphere.

Perhaps the pod's course will take him to the Kryptonian dreadnought no doubt hiding in the shadow of Daxam's largest moon. If he is silent, the dreadnought's docking protocols will bring him aboard. No doubt they will throw him in the brig, if he's lucky, but at least there's a chance of survival, however miniscule.

As he clears atmosphere, the view from the canopy slides from a dusky red and gray to the black of outer space with a crackle, his ears adjusting from the onslaught of noise caused by friction and combustion, to the profound silence provided by a near vacuum. That he made it offworld without being destroyed by meteors is a miracle to be sure, but one that has yet to fully play out, if the wall of meteors headed his way are any indication.

A computer voice breaks the silence, startling him out of the sudden terror washing over him.

"Loth-El, I am detecting multiple projectiles on a collision course with this pod. Anything more than a glancing blow will have catastrophic results. Shall I plot evasive maneuvers?"

So that was his name…the Kryptonian Emissary. Apropos, it seems. His father, the king would often laugh about naming him Mon-El, rather than bestowing upon him an official name from House Gand. The Kryptonian House of El spoke loftily of hope and never giving up, and so his father had given him the name Mon-El, which translated to 'last hope'. It was a name bestowed with derision, and used with such intent from his earliest memories to his last. It seems destined, somehow, that his only hope for rescue should come in the form of pod belonging to a member of the House of El.

"Yes!" he replies. "Evasive maneuvers!"

A moment of silence without course-correction from the pod is followed by the computer's voice speaking once more. "You are not Loth-El," the voice decides. Mon-El rolls his eyes. The computer's voice is haughty and arrogant – so definitely Kryptonian. "Where is Loth-El?"

"Loth-El is dead," he replies honestly. "Killed in the first wave of the meteor shower you have obviously detected," he adds, not so honestly.

"State your identity."

"My name is Mon-El."

Immediately, as though hearing a magic word, the pod picks up speed, headed straight for the next wave of meteors. Mon-El closes his eyes and waits for death, but is instead surprised when the ship begins to weave in and out of the wall of rock until it emerges from the other side without so much as a glancing blow from the projectiles.

"Well done!" he shouts, breathing a huge sigh of relief.

"My name is Benix, Mon of the House of El," the pod replies. "I have taken the liberty of laying in the next course as Loth-El requested upon his arrival on Daxam."

"Excellent," he answers. "Where is the dreadnought hiding?"

"The last Kryptonian dreadnought was destroyed when Krypton exploded," Benix informs him, her voice modulator shifting to a sad tone. "Fourteen thousand, three hundred and thirty-six souls lost in the escape attempt, Mon-El. Sixty-two percent of which were children under the age of sixteen."

Mon-El feels a pang of sadness at the incomprehensible loss, wondering why Benix feels the needs to share that devastating data. "But if there's no dreadnought…then where are we headed?"

"To the Sol System," she answers succinctly. "The journey will take four Kryptonian years. Deep space stasis will commence in five…four…three…two…."

"No, wait!" he has more questions. What's in this Sol System? What can he expect to find there? How will he survive? Will there be others?

"One," Benix intones, her voice followed by the hissing sound of the pod valves releasing the stasis gas.

He has no choice but to breathe in. There's nowhere to hide from the gas that will keep him in a sleep state until the counteragent is released upon landing and it's time to awaken. Darkness closes in around him like he's being dragged under the surface of a lake kicking and screaming.

When his eyes open again, he's back in Ral's cell standing over the dying body of his brother-in-bond. The brother he can't save. The brother he knows he'll be forced to watch die.

Again.

Three days.

Three days of sitting by his bedside and begging him to wake up and just…talk to her. Three days of leaving the safety of National City in the hands of Martian Manhunter and…Guardian. Three days of learning frustratingly little about Mon-El's condition.

Kara sits on the toilet in the last stall of the bathroom, waiting for the next wave of tears to hit. She's been here for nearly an hour, maybe even two, it's hard to tell time when every minute feels like an hour. She's managed to wrangle her emotions into submission, but the twisting, stabbing pain in her gut tells her that isn't going to last long.

She came here because it was only the place she could get any privacy, escape the looks of pity, and remain close to him. She could be by his side in a second, and even now she has one ear trained to the beeps and drips of the medical equipment attached to him. Which is why Kara doesn't hear her sister coming until the bathroom door opens.

Damn. She forgot to lock the door.

"Kara?" Alex pokes her head in the room, her body language suggesting that some pushback is expected. When none is forthcoming, she slips into the room and does what Kara forgot to do. Locks the door. "I know you're in here."

"No, I'm not," Kara answers. It is inside joke between them that began not long after Kara started junior high school after arrival on Earth. More than once Kara hid out in bathroom stalls during her sixth-grade year. More than once, eighth-grade Alex tracked her down to a bathroom stall to talk her into rejoining the world that still frightened her. Alex had always been good at tracking her down, at which time she would call out, 'I know you're in there', and Kara would reply, 'no, I'm not.' It usually put a glimmer of a smile on her face.

But not today. Today it feels like she may never smile again.

"You've been in here for nearly three hours," Alex informs her. "I was starting to worry that you fell in."

Three hours? Her mind and emotions had distorted time worse than she thought. Her emotions having been coming and going in waves like nausea. Just when she thinks it might be okay to step out of the stall, the tears well up again. Like now. Kara tears another strip of toilet paper from the roll, and catches the tears before they can roll down her cheeks.

Alex slips into the next-door stall and sits down on the toilet. She leans her ahead against the shared wall, and hearing the discreet thunk, Kara does the same. "Want to talk about it?" Alex asks.

Kara shakes her head, knowing that even though Alex can't see it, she will sense it. "Is there anything new?" she asks, not sure if she wants to hear the answer.

"His brain has maintained a low Theta wave state of consciousness for three days now."

"What does that mean?"

"People experience Theta wave consciousness when they're in a dream state, but after a brief period in Theta we usually slip into Delta, or 'slow wave' sleep. That's where we enter a restful state, where our minds are able to rejuvenate. That's not happening with Mon-El. Something's going on in his brain."

"What if I broke him?" she asks. It's the question that's been percolating in the in the back of her mind for three days. She hit him pretty hard after his powers had flared out, leaving him as vulnerable and as frail as any human. "What if I…damaged his brain?"

"You broke his nose," Alex says. "And his jaw. Both of which healed after we hooked the electrical leads to him. He probably had a concussion, but there's no reason to believe that wouldn't have healed as well. Scans show there's no bleeding or swelling. His brain is fine."

"Then why won't he wake up?"

"His brain is fine," Alex reiterates. "But…like most brains…his is still a mystery. It's clear that, so far, his autonomic reflexes remain intact. He's breathing on his own and reacting to pain stimuli, all promising things." Alex sighs a deep breath, putting a pause on the conversation. "But I didn't come in here to talk about Mon-El, I came in here to check on you. You need to be taken care of too," she says.

"I'm fine."

"You haven't slept in three days. Barely eaten. You must be running on nothing but rads by now. First, you refused to leave his side at all, and now you've suddenly gone to hide in the bathroom for three hours. Your guests have been asking about you, by the way. Talk to me, Kara. It's just us, okay? Is it about the things he said before the meltdown?"

That's what they were calling it now. The Meltdown, as if he were a nuclear plant that simply lost control of its cooling systems. Kara grimaces, because in a way, that's exactly what happened, and she is primarily responsible for the fallout.

"It's not uncommon for people in the throes of a PTSD episode to enter what's called a 'dissociative fugue'," Alex explains, filling the silence while simultaneously trying to reassure her sister. "It's likely that, when he wakes up, he might not remember anything that happened."

"You mean he might not remember that I stabbed him in the back?"

"You did what you thought was best."

"No, I did what _you_ thought was best," Kara corrects. "I knew before I even talked to you that putting him in containment might be a possibility, but I stupidly assumed it would be a last resort and not the knee-jerk reaction."

"Maybe you're right," Alex sighs. "Maybe I could have been more delicate, and for that I'm sorry."

"I'm not the one who deserves your apology." Kara wipes at another tear that rolls down her cheek and sighs. "Some of the things he said, Alex," she shakes her head. "What happened back there?"

"Whatever it was…Kara…it doesn't sound like his PTSD started with the destruction of Daxam. It may go back farther than that."

"He wanted me to kill him," she says.

"Kara, he wasn't in his right mind. You don't even know if he was lucid."

"What could be so bad…that he'd want to die?"

"Whatever it was…he's going to have to face it. One way or another. Or it won't be last time he detonates like that. I don't know him as well as you do, Kara, but I like to think he wouldn't want that to happen."

"No," she agrees. "No, he wouldn't."

"So," Alex drawls, "are you ready to tell me what drove you in here? After three days of refusing to let him out of your sight?"

Damn. Kara hoped that their conversation had been driven far enough off topic that it wouldn't make its way back around to the starting line. She isn't going to let this go, and lying and telling her she just wanted privacy isn't going to fly. Not with Alex. The lump of sadness—of grief she shouldn't even be allowed to feel—rises again in her throat, choking off her voice.

"Kara?" Alex presses.

"Cramps," she confesses with a sniffle, her voice like gravel and clearly thick with unexpected emotions.

"Cramps?" Alex echoes, her tone exhibiting surprise at this reply. "You don't usually—"

"I know!" Kara bemoans, tears gathering again. "And it came a day early!"

"But you're never early! I could set a clock by—"

"I know. I'm freaking Universal Mean Time, okay? But this time I was early – like my body decided to add insult to injury."

"Wait a minute," Alex shakes her head in confusion. "I'm lost here. Did you think you might be—"

"Yes!"

"So you an Mon-El had unprotected—"

"It was an accident!" Kara defended.

"That pushes the boundaries of the definition of accident," Alex quips. "You promised me that—"

"It was just the once. We got a little caught up."

"So that's why Mom asked me to—"

"Did you figure it out?"

"Who do you think you're talking to here?" Alex questions, only slight offended. "Of course, I figured it out. But let's take a step back. I want to get this straight: you _wanted_ to be—"

"Not at first, don't be ridiculous. But then…after we talked about it, I knew that everything might be okay if I was. It's not like I was keeping my fingers crossed for a positive result though."

"So then why are you in here—"

"I don't know, okay? I just am. I got my period and I started crying and now I can't stop. The thing is…I started to wonder, you know? What it might be like. Would we have a girl or a boy? I imagined this little girl…" She wants to go on, to tell Alex all the things she pictured about her imaginary daughter, but can't bring herself to say more. In her life on this planet, there have been few things Kara couldn't share with Alex, and this is one of them. It's just somehow, too personal.

"You got attached to the idea," Alex concludes.

"I let it become more than just an idea," Kara explains, nodding. "We talked about it…about starting a family." She crumbles and the tears begin in earnest as though they a starting for the first time…again. "I just feel like everything's falling apart!"

"I know," Alex says. "But it's not, okay? We're all here for you…and for Mon-El. J'onn is holding down the fort…with James. I shouldn't have been surprised by that," Alex comments, referring to James' coming out as Guardian, "but I was."

"You and me both," Kara snorts.

"Thanks to the device that gives you a direct line to parallel worlds, Dr. Snow is working with the rest of the medical team to figure out how to bring him out of this…whatever it is. And Winn is working with Cisco to find a way to help him control his new, and more dangerous, abilities when he does wake up. When…not if," Alex stresses. "And they've had some progress on that front."

"They have?"

"It's one of the reasons I came looking for you. They seemed awfully excited. They were even finishing each other's sentences, which is ridiculously cute."

"What did they find out?" Kara wonders, sniffing away the last of her tears.

"They could probably explain it better than I. How about…you splash some water on your face, straighten yourself up and join the rest of the world again?"

"Alex…?"

"It's just between us," Alex answers Kara's unasked question, standing up from her seat. "When your period ends, you can start taking the pills."

They exit their respective stalls at the same time, Alex taking Kara into her arms as soon as she's close enough. Kara sinks into her sister's embrace as though it's the balm for which she's been searching. Between the two of them, Kara has always been the strongest physically, but Alex is the stalwart – with the uncanny ability to put emotions into context and events into perspective.

"I miss him," Kara whispers into her sister's hair.

"I know." Alex strokes Kara's hair, just as she did when they were teenagers and Kara had rough adjustment days. "We'll figure this out, Kara. He'll come back to you. I'm certain of it."

"How can you be so certain?"

"I'm taking a page out of your book, Kara. I refuse to believe that God or Rao or the Universe or whatever, brought him all this way for you, just so you can lose him now."

"What about not believing in that stuff?"

"I believe in what I can see and what I can measure. I believe in cause and effect – actions and reactions. And I can see it all now," Alex announces, pulling Kara out of her embrace so that she can make eye contact. "You are right, Kara…too many things had to happen in just the right order at just the right time to bring the two of you together. A few _too_ many coincidences to make the generally random nature of coincidences a plausible rationalization."

"What are you saying?" Kara asks.

"The Blessed Path, remember?" Alex replies. "Maybe it needs you to keep the faith."

It made an odd sort of sense to Kara. As if this were merely a test, an obstacle in their way that needed only to be hurdled. When she thinks of it this way she can feel the determination bubble up inside of her. He will find his way out whatever darkness has sucked him under – find his way back to her. And she will be by his side, waiting, when he does. This is just another obstacle. And if there's one thing Kara knows how to do, it is tear down things that get in her way.

With a new lease on her innate tenacity, Kara stalks to the sink and turns on the faucet. She splashes cold water over her tear-stained cheeks while Alex hands her a few paper towels to dry off.

Examining herself in the mirror, she straightens her spine and tugs at the hem of her thoroughly wrinkled blouse in hopes of making it appear slightly more presentable. "Let's go see what Cisco and Winn have come up with," she says.

Alex nods, succinctly. "Atta girl."


	2. Chapter 2

_I do what it takes to make this right_

 _But, we got to stop before the regret_

 _After the war is won_

 _There's always the next one_

 _I'll do what it takes to make this right_

 _-"Armor" by Landon Austin_

Chapter 2/?

Mon-El watches from behind as Morgon peeks around the corner then turns his head to make sure they are still alone in the corridor. He's antsy about being out in the open like this, so exposed to anyone who might walk around the corner or step out of any of the host of doors within his sightline. Quickly losing patience with his bond-brother's apparent indecisiveness he pokes Morgon on the shoulder. "What do you see?" he asks, his whisper far too loud to be considered secretive.

"Are you _trying_ to get us caught?" Morgon turns back with a hiss. His frustration is the kind that only an older brother can truly feel, and though he feels it keenly, after four years this role still feels new to him. His mother and Mon-El's father celebrated the fourth commemoration of their latching just last month – though the word 'celebrating' implies a much more jovial event then the dour feast which actually transpired. It is no secret that his mother regrets the match, despite the wealth and position it now affords her. "Do you want to go back to the Rector Sem?" he asks his younger brother.

At the mention of their tutor's name, Mon-El's eyes widen and he shakes his head frantically. They had narrowly escaped Rector Sem's tutoring lesson for the day, and Mon-El is certain that if forced to return, the Rector would turn red in the face, and his eyes would squint and burn with righteous fire. While Ral has a singular ability to laugh off Rector Sem's bluster, Mon-El can do little but curse his quaking knees when in the man's presence.

He envies his big brother's courage and longs to be just like him, to stand up for what's right and not back down, but though he tries his best, he always falls shy of the goal. Instead he finds himself often standing in his elder bond-brother's shadow, rather than stepping out into the sun's rays. Much to Father's vocal displeasure.

"We're almost there," Morgon whispers. "Just one more flight and two more hallways. I heard some handmaidens talking about it the other day. How come if there's a treasure room, we've never heard about it?" Morgon wonders skeptically.

"Well, treasure rooms are supposed to be secret, aren't they?" Mon-El shrugs, pragmatically. He doesn't really care that much about finding treasure, he's here for the adventure with his big brother.

"If handmaidens know, then everyone knows. That's what Mother says," Morgon replies with a slight roll of his eyes.

Mon-El nods sagely in agreement. Even though they always grow suddenly quiet around him, he knows the servants are constantly whispering about one thing or another. Telling secrets. "The treasure's probably all gone by now."

"Coast is clear," Morgon announces, and shoves Mon-El in front of him. "Up the stairs."

Mon-El races across the corridor and into the stairwell as fast as his short legs will carry him. Father told him once that his legs would grow long and strong someday, just as his own once had, but Mon-El is quickly growing weary of waiting for that day to come. He has a hard time keeping up with Morgon's longer, quicker strides.

As if to prove the inferiority of Mon-El's legs, Morgon joins his younger brother in the stairwell in three quick steps and then he leaps up the stairs themselves, taking them two at a time. He tosses a glance over his shoulder at Mon-El. "C'mon," he says. "Keep up."

Mon-El struggles to do just that, his short, spindly legs unable to take the stairs more than one riser at a time or risk falling on his face, a move that could easily get them caught where they shouldn't be. "Wait for me," he calls out, his voice raised only slightly above a whisper.

By the time he reaches the top of the stairs, Morgon is, once again, peering around the corner, on the lookout for unwanted witnesses. He holds a hand back, signaling Mon-El to stop before moving like a flash, pressing them both against the stairwell wall. Mon-El instinctively understands that silence at this time would be prudent, so of course his body responds with an ill-timed nervous hiccup. He covers his mouth with both hands to mask the sound. One of Morgan's hands joins his to assist in the effort, just as a servant marches past the stairs carrying a stack of boxes.

Thankfully, the manservant is too busy and too laden to take notice of the shadowy presence just a few feet away. Morgon breathes a sigh of relief when the servant is out of earshot. Mon-El hiccups.

"Will you be quiet?" Morgon whispers.

"I can't—" _hiccup_ –"help it!" This always happens when he's nervous, his diaphragm going into uncontrollable spasms. Father despises it and sends him from the room, a disgusted scowl etched on his face, every time it happens. Which is almost every time they're in the same room together, except when Father ignores him.

"Hold your breath," Morgon instructs.

"M'olding m'bref," he mumbles around loosely sealed lips. A roll of the eyes from Morgon has Mon-El gulping a deep breath of air and sealing his lips more tightly this time. Still his hiccups continue, tearing painfully at his insides. Before he can stop Morgon, his big brother disappears around the corner, where Mon-el is unable to follow lest his hiccups give away their position. So, he has no choice but to wait.

And wait.

While waiting he takes three more deep breaths, holding each one until his vision turns grey around the edges and his lungs threaten to burst. None of the breaths eradicate the stubborn hiccups though. "Hic!" he hiccups, surrendering to his body's own form of torture.

"Glaaaaaaarrrr!" screams Morgon, popping back around the corner, his face distorted and his hands raised to simulate the talons of a yellow-skinned glarbeast. His lips pulled back into a snarl.

Startling, his heart set to racing in his chest, Mon-El lashes out at Morgon, punching him hard on the shoulder with all of his insignificant might, only somewhat mollified to see the self-satisfied smirk disappear from his brother's deceptively angelic face. "You're going to get into trouble," he whines.

Mon-El knows that, unfair or not, he wouldn't get into trouble. Not by anyone who might catch them, at any rate. His punishment would be reserved for deliverance by Father, should the man decide to care. Mon-El could never predict when the man would determine a punishment worth the trouble involved in administering it. Should they be caught, it's likely that Morgon would be hastened away to his mother, while Mon-El would merely be returned to the Rector's classroom.

"There's no one left up here," Morgon explains with a careless shrug. "I checked all around. You can stop hiding." He reaches out his hand to clasp Mon-El's, tugging him the rest of the way up the stairs.

Mon-El examines the deserted hallway searching for any signs that his brother is pranking him. Such actions on his part, though good-natured, are not unheard of. He's never been to this part of the palace before, since it was closed off decades ago, after a tragedy of which people never speak in voices above a whisper. It appears to be used for storage now, mostly, servants only visiting to retrieve items that were tucked away out of sight, and always with their eyes steadfastly averted away for the dark corridor in which he now entered.

"No one bothers to clean up here," Morgon comments, running his finger over a tabletop thick with layers of dust."

Ancient works of art, portraits on old-fashioned canvas line the corridor, each draped with a sheer, iridescent covering designed to protect it from dust and contaminants. It does nothing, however, to protect the fine art from being forgotten. Morgon peels back the covering to get an unimpeded look at the portrait.

"You shouldn't do that!" Mon-El warns, his stomach twisting with anxiety. "You might hurt it, and Father will get angry."

Morgon sticks out his tongue, blowing a careless raspberry. "The king won't even notice," he adds, with a shrug. "If he cares so much for this stuff, why doesn't he have it where people can see it?"

It is a point Mon-El finds difficult to argue, but still he grabs Morgon's arm and pulls him away from the portrait, catching only the quickest glimpse of its ethereal subject in the process. The metal plate beneath the portrait reads, 'Her Royal Highness, Princess Gata. Wife to Prince Trel, House Gand'.

A shiver races down his spine at the site of the woman's face and her striking blue eyes, her hand resting on her slightly protruding belly. Mon-El presses the protective cover back down over the portrait. He can still see her face through the sheer, shimmering weave, except she appears even more ghostlike, her sparkling eyes now dimmed to sadness – an emptiness like grief – and a sense of foreboding fills him.

"What is it?" Morgon wonders, sensing his younger brother's reticence.

"Nothing." He shakes his head, scratching the back of his neck in an attempt to relieve the sudden sensation of insects crawling beneath his skin. "I think I know why no one ever comes to this place."

"Why?"

"The Purge."

"What's The Purge?" Morgon asks, though he uses a ridiculously melodramatic voice.

It's not every day that Mon-El knows something that Morgon doesn't, which only means he wishes he had more information to flaunt than he actually does. By virtue of his position, and the fact that he's lived in the Palace six years longer than Morgon has, he's heard most of the rumors, many of them contradicting and therefore of no use to him. He doesn't know enough about The Purge to provide an impressive display of knowledge.

"My great-grandfather's brother – he was _supposed_ to be king and not my great-grandfather – did something bad—"

"What did he do?"

"He killed his wife," Mon-El nods at the covered painting, "and then himself. They say he went insane and became some religious maniac. And then his father the king, died just a few days later. Heartbroken…they say. After my great-grandfather became king, he said his brother was a traitor and had all memory of them wiped from the Daxcess. Then he had these apartments closed off, declaring them Forbidden, and decreed that their belongings be destroyed."

"Except the portrait…?" Morgon wonders.

"She was kind to him," Mon-El explains. "So he allowed it to remain, but he would not allow it to be placed in the portrait gallery. It has to stay up here…covered…so no one can see it."

"Her husband already killed her," Morgon grimaces. "What did she do to deserve _more_ punishment?"

"She was…Kryptonian," Mon-El informs his brother, the word tasting like bitter alm berries on his tongue.

"Oh," Morgan nods. "Maybe she was a spy."

"Some people say he _loved_ her. How can you love a Kryptonian?" Mon-El asks.

Morgon regards the portrait once more, crossing his arms and rocking back on his heels as he has witnessed from the Royal Assayer. "She was quite beautiful," he points out, pragmatically.

Mon-El swallows the bitter taste in his mouth that always rises when Morgon starts talking about girls. His older brother sees something in the frippery creatures that he cannot understand, no matter how hard he tries. "It wouldn't matter how beautiful she is, I would rather die than love a Kryptonian," he declares, his tone one of absolute certainty, albeit a bit dramatic.

"Well, I wouldn't care if she was a Lizarkon," Morgon counters.

"Eww," Mon-El pulls a face and tries not to laugh, but fails miserably. "Disgusting."

Morgon shrugs one shoulder, unoffended by his brother's opinion. "Mother says you can't help who you love. It just happens. Sometimes slow and sometimes fast, but you can't fight it. You can try…but you'll always lose." Morgon has never known his mother to be wrong, and therefore has no reason to doubt her word.

As a young boy, before his mother latched to the king, she would tell him stories of her love for his father, of their love for one another. It was her way of keeping his father present – keeping him alive. Like most Daxamite alliances, theirs had been arranged, but that had not stopped them from falling deeply in love, according to his mother. His vague recollections of the happy times before his father was killed were of two people who danced in each other's arms and smiled down at him as if he was their perfect Approval Day gift. Reflic Ral's grin, with his perfectly white teeth and carefree easiness, still clings to the outskirts of Morgon's memory six years after the man's tragic and unexplained death. He wishes he could remember more of them in their happy times instead of mere glimpses, and his mother no longer speaks of him.

After a palace soiree celebrating something no one can even recall anymore, Reflic went missing for two days, before his body was found floating in the choppy, crimson waters of a nearby lake. No signs of struggle or even foul play were present – and neither was internal evidence of drowning. It is a mystery about which people in their social caste still whisper.

A light went out of his mother after that, Morgon recalls, and though she tried her best to keep up her spirits for him, her smile never quite travelled to her eyes any more. One year after his father's death, almost to the day, Daxam's king approached her at an event and initiated a formal courtship. Though many of Daxam's elite are matched with partners at very young ages and some, in special cases, are designed for their latch mate by the agents of the Procreational Authority of Genetic Enforcement, decades of warfare with Krypton had left more than a few patriots without a spouse.

King Vir Gand had been latched no less than three times before initiating courtship with Tieran Ral, second daughter to House Is. His first marriage ended one year before he ascended the throne, caused by a virulent illness in which she lingered painfully for months before finally succumbing. Prince Vir married his second wife less than four months later, having not provided a timely heir during his first union.

Each subsequent wife lasted longer than the previous, the last – Her Royal Highness Princess Cienne – surviving six years and succumbing to illness just three weeks after Mon-El was deemed exceptional and released by PAGE. After the death of three wives, inevitable rumors surfaced of course, but most went unheeded by the upper classes, or at least…unrepeated. No one in a position of opulence cared to make an enemy of the sitting monarch, lest they be unceremoniously relieved of title, lands and position.

So, for reasons known only to the King, after six years without a wife, he pursued the widow Ral. He viewed her growing son simultaneously as a minor inconvenience and a method by which he could keep his own progeny occupied and thus, out of his hair. Fatherhood was nowhere on his priority list.

His mother had explained that marrying into House Gand would bring great advantages for his future, which was the only reason she agreed to the alliance in the first place. She would never love again, not as she had loved his father, but she could make certain Morgon had the best start in life a widowed mother could provide. No one knows better than Morgon, however, that his mother is unhappy in her marriage to the King of Daxam. Her eyes are dull and lifeless now, dark circles beneath them like that never quite seem to go away. And now and then, though she went to great lengths to hide it, Morgon would catch sight of bruises on her wrists and neck.

A noise from the stairwell tears Morgon from his woolgathering, focusing his attention in the direction of the sound. Grabbing Mon-El, who stares unfocused at the approaching danger, he tugs his younger brother across the hall, his hands grappling at the oversized doorknob of the nearest room.

Locked.

Mon-El's breath intensifies as he stares over his shoulder like a hunted fennick, Morgon tugging him to the next door in the long corridor, then the next, and then the next, until he finds one that gives way at his insistence. Morgon shoves his little brother into the room before spinning back to close the door, leaving it open just enough to peer out with one partially concealed eye. As expected, the noise stems from a servant climbing the stairs, arms laden with items to return to storage. The man disappears into a room at the end of the hall for a moment, before exiting, relieved of his burden.

"Morgon," Mon-El's voice says, tugging on his sleeve.

"Give me a minute," he whispers, waiting for the servant to disappear down the stairs from whence he came.

"Morgon!"

"What?!" Morgon turns back, finally seeing the room that provided their escape.

"I think we found it," Mon-El replies.

Found it indeed.

The bedroom of Daxam's doomed first couple, as evidenced by the massive bed that fills much of its space, stands as though left abandoned a century ago. The bed even appears to be unmade, as if the assigned servant never bothered to set it to rights after the sudden deaths of its owners. A formal gown lay strewn across a chair waiting to be worn, matching slippers neatly placed nearby.

Except for the layers of dust, the room appears exactly as abandoned over a century ago now. A nightdress lay in a puddle on the floor, waiting patiently for disposal by a servant that never arrives.

"This is just a bedroom," Morgon denies, with a shrug.

"This was _their_ bedroom," Mon-El qualifies. "Where else would you hide a treasure but in a room where no one will ever go looking for it? Just look…no one's even been in this room for a century."

"You have a devious mind, brother."

Mon-El preens at both the praise and Morgon's use of the familial moniker. Even from the beginning, Morgon gave him a sense of belonging he never felt in his own home—with Father.

"I thought you said the old king had all of their belongings destroyed," Morgon says, confused.

"I thought so too," Mon-El says, also confused by the contradiction of the story he was told and reality before his eyes. "He must have only ordered their qubigital records destroyed."

"So he had them wiped from the Daxcess—"

"And all historical record," Mon-El finishes.

"And all of the historical record," Morgon echoes, "but didn't have their personal items destroyed?"

"Maybe he couldn't bring himself to do it," Mon-El suggests, a trace of sadness in his tone. "Maybe the new king loved his brother, even if he was a traitor."

Morgon thought about his father and the small chest of personal effects he kept beneath his bed. Most if it was inconsequential and yet he couldn't bear to share any of it, or be rid of the items, as they were all things his father had touched or owned. He can't imagine throwing it away, no matter what his father might have done. "That makes sense, I guess."

As if the long undisturbed room calls out to the insatiable curiosity within him, Morgon goes straight for a nearby chest of drawers like a pollinator towards its colony. He hesitates for a brief second, waiting for Mon-El to stop him, just as he had done when he'd tried to get a better look at the portrait. When no protest is immediately forthcoming, he passes his hand over the sensor that opens the drawer. It slides open with a soft whoosh and not the whine he expects, as though the tracks hadn't gone unused for a century.

Borrowing a bit of Morgon's brash recklessness, Mon-El heads for the trunk in corner of the immense chamber, drawn by the crest of House Gand emblazoned on its lid. Pressing his palm to the symbol, the lid splits in two, each portion folding back in half and then again in quarters until the contents of the trunk are revealed. Sitting atop the pile of contents is a black gown, in its center a Kryptonian glyph stark against the black with its sparkling silver thread. In the center of the pentagon, a serpentine symbol that reminds Mon-El of a trail of smoke rising from the wax candles the Priestess uses in the ritual to worship Lure.

"Kryptonian?" Mon-El startles, and turns his head to find Morgon standing over his shoulder. "There wasn't anything in there but ladies' clothes," Morgon adds. "Boring. Looks like you got more of the same. How much clothing does a woman need anyway?"

Mon-El looks beyond Morgon to the chest to find every drawer left open with, predictably, the contents dangling out. He shakes his head and turns back to the black gown in his hand. "House of Ur," he declares.

"How do you know that?"

"Father made Rector Sem teach all of them to me. All of the ones that matter, anyway. House of Ur led the High Council for three centuries. Four years ago, a rogue scientist blew a crater in one of their own moons testing a weapon, and the scandal was so bad the House of Ur was forced to abdicate their seat. House of Am is in charge now," he explains.

"Blowing up a moon!" Morgon delights. "That sounds exultant!"

"Five hundred Kryptonians were living on it at the time," Mon-El adds, watching as the smile melts from Morgon's face. Mon-El has no love for Kryptonians, not even a handful of colonists, but there's no honor in a death at the hands of your own kind. And there's certainly no honor in perpetrating such deaths.

"Oh. Was the scientist put to death?" Morgon asks, a spark of hope lighting in his eyes.

"Oh, Krypton no longer puts murderers to death like on Daxam. Now they sentence them to a fate _worse_ than death."

"What's worse than death?"

"They call it 'The Phantom Zone'." He's heard adults whisper about it – about the barbarity of it – but knew little about the origins of the Kryptonian prison, other than its ominous name.

"I've heard Mother talking about it," Morgon answers and then shrugs. "It doesn't seem so bad."

"They say it's like a living Nerg-Tyr," he counters, evoking the Trinitarian Void where Almat judges the judgmental until they are sufficiently punished enough to earn rebirth. "Except it goes on for eternity, but its residents are unaware because time doesn't pass. So, they have no way of knowing if, or when, their sentence will end."

"You're right, that doesn't sound so good."

Mon-El tosses the black ceremonial gown on the bed, a plume of dust rising in response. Morgon coughs his eyes watering as he inhales the allergens now unavoidable in the air. He waves his hands all around hoping to clear the air so that he can breathe again. "Doesn't that bother you?" he asks.

"I'm okay," Mon-El replies, already digging through the rest of the chest, looking for something of interest. He drags out more gowns and in the bottom blankets that appear to be more of sentimental value or ceremonial value than they are of any practical use. Pulling out the last of the items, he stares at the empty chest, disappointed, before reaching his hands in and running them along the sides and the bottom.

"What are you doing?" Morgon asks, curious.

"Looking for a secret compartment, like a false bottom. A place where a Kryptonian princess might hide something."

"Isn't a false bottom or secret compartment a little obvious?" Morgon points out.

"Father says they're very crafty…Kryptonians…and are not to be underestimated, but also that they're arrogant, which is always their downfall. It's just like a Kryptonian to think they'll never be found out." He sighs, disappointed to have found nothing. Placing his arm along the rim of the open chest he drops his head against his forearm in frustration, the chest tipping slightly to one side from the force.

"Did you hear that?" Morgon asks, his tone rising with excitement.

"Hear what?"

Morgan leans over Mon-El and presses on the rim of the chest and, sure enough, he hears a clunk. "That."

"The floor is uneven," Mon-El shrugs, looking around at the floor beneath his knees but seeing no evidence of his assertion, "that's all."

"It sounds like a tile is loose." He's heard and seen many a loose tile (maybe even created a few) in the palace, but they are immediately fixed by servants once reported. It makes no sense that a loose tile would go uncorrected in the chambers of the Crown Prince and his bride, unless they were just sloppy back then. Today, Father would not stand for such imperfection. Morgon grabs for the chest and demands, "Help me move it."

Mon-El complies, finding Morgon's sudden excitement contagious. He jumps to his feet and grasps the other side of the chest and together they shift it away from its century long location. Morgon taps his foot along each visible stone tile until he finds the one that tilts up when he applies pressure. A grin splits his deceptively angelic face, a lock of white blond curls falling over one sparkling green eye. "Found it."

The tile lifts easily, along with a colony of cobwebs. There's no predicting what lurks in the dark hole revealed by removing the loose tile, but Morgon doesn't hesitate before diving his arm into the potentially vermin or venom-infested darkness.

Mon-El thinks, as Morgon pulls back that tile, that his brother's eyes could not get brighter nor his smile bigger, but he is proved wrong a few moments later when Morgon's arm retreats from the hiding space with a lockbox in hand. Mon-El slides the tile back into place at Morgon sets it gently on the bed examining it from corner to corner.

"And you said we wouldn't find any treasure," the older boy teases, passing his palm over the lid. The proximity of warm flesh to the lock releases a mechanism with a churning sound. "Val-Or's Peaks," he curses.

"What is it?" Mon-El asks, surprised by his brother's expletive.

"It's a Code Locked," he replies. Uncharacteristically disheartened, Morgon drops back onto his haunches. Code locks have been in use on Daxam for nearly three centuries and have never grown out of fashion due to their ironclad, impossible to duplicate security.

"Code Locked? Whatever's in there _must_ be very important. Level 3, do you think?" Mon-El asks.

"How should I know?"

"If it's a Level 1, I might be able to crack it."

"Or…this could be the moment you find out you're adopted…."

"Wouldn't that be nice?" Mon-El snarks. It's just too much to hope.

"Be my guest," Morgon offers, moving out of the way.

Mon-El places his thumb into a sliding a mechanism on the top of the box, flinching when he feels a pin prick on the sensitive tip of the digit. Hardly taking a moment to analyze the offering, the pad reader turns green and a computerized voice demands, "Code phrase." Mon-El turns his head to meet Morgon's suddenly reinvigorated green eyes. His older brother chews on his bottom lip, the air of the room thickening with anticipation.

Code locks come in three levels. Level 1, the easiest, requires only a blood sample with familial DNA allowing any member of the family to open the lock. Assuming the lockbox once belonged to Mon-El's ancestor, though distant, the familial match was still strong enough to allow for unlocking. His theory confirmed by the pinprick, the box revealed a second layer to the Code Lock. Level 2 adds an additional tier of protection, requiring a vocal code word or phrase to meet the unlock requisite. Finally, Level 3 requires an exact DNA match in addition to identical voiceprint; only the person setting the lock can open it.

After a moment's hesitation, Mon-El takes a wild guess and provides the motto for House Gand. "Into the Fray, Unflinching," he speaks into the locks panel. Instantly, they hear a snapping sound and the lid releases.

"You did it! Let's see what's inside."

Carefully, Mon-El lifts the lid, peering into the box as though expecting a squirming, slimy orlin to leap out, its needle-sharp teeth bared for deadly purpose. Even Morgon looks at him as though he's crazy. The lid doesn't even creak as he slowly draws it back, and Mon-El feels a disappointment sink in when he realizes there are no sparkling jewels or ancient coins winking back at him as they capture the light.

"Papers," he says, without even bothering to rifle through the contents. "It's just papers."

" _Real_ paper?" Morgon asks. "When was the last time you saw real paper?"

"Father uses it for galactic treaties and trade agreements. Not every government is paperless, you know. And long ago, scouts would submit their reports in paper because it was more secure than entering them into the Daxcess. I wonder if that's what these are." Mon-El breathes, his earlier disappointment transitioning to excitement. "It makes sense. They would need to be kept secure. Things like troop movements, supply chain coordinates, even locations of ordnance factories; places the Protection Forces would send surge teams to. For all we know…these could be old action reports from the Battles of Partek's Moons."

"Pretty sure these aren't _that_ old," Morgon says, but fearless as usual he reaches into the box and grabs a handful of neatly folded papers. Coat tailing his brother's courage, Mon-El takes a few pages from the lockbox. The parchment is thicker than he expected and less affected by the passage of time than one might assume after a century. The lockbox must have been hermetically sealed to keep the papers in mint condition.

"You never know," Mon-El ruminates, toying with the edges of the parchment, hesitant to end the anticipation, perhaps worried that the papers may contain information he'd rather not learn.

Morgon, not a reluctant bone in his body, has no such qualms. Unfolding the letter, he scans the document, his alternately squinting and growing larger as they work their way down the page.'

"What is it?"

"Letters written by hand are hard to read. I can only make out a few words," Morgon complains.

Mon-El hold out his hand. "Let me," he suggests. "Father makes me read handwritten documents all the time. He says it's important for me to be familiar with intergalactic treaties and trade agreements. He likes to test me on what I've learned; Rector Sem began teaching me the handwriting skill once I was old enough to hold a stylus."

Happily, Morgon hands over the letter. "You need the practice then anyway."

The first letter is easy to read, it's words looping neatly across the page and it doesn't take long for Mon-El to decipher its contents. "It's a letter about…."

Morgon climbs on the bed and curls into a comfortable position, preparing to listen to his bond-brother read the letter aloud. "About what?" he asks.

"Copulation," Mon-El responds. It isn't what they came for, he knows. A little disappointing, to be honest, since he'd been hoping for tales of adventure and not tales of personal entertainment. Copulation is a dull subject, he feels, boring to hear about or to watch. Father laughs when he makes his feelings known about it and promises him that he'll have a much different view of the subject once he reaches the age of consent. There's always something dark and foreboding in Father's promises and in his laughter.

"Go on then," Morgon urges, and since his older brother doesn't seem averse to hearing the letter's contents, Mon-El gives in.

It's not so bad, he realizes after finishing one letter and picking up another. Trel's missives are far more intense and graphic, perhaps owing to the differences in their cultures. Gata's communiques are sweet and heartfelt, only occasionally drifting into graphic prose. Mon-El can't deny that, if one were to judge by these letters alone, it would be easy to imagine that the prince and princess loved each other…deeply. But this was only one side of the story, he reminds himself. There's no telling what secrets or lies the Kryptonian princess might have been hiding from her mate.

After the fourth love letter is complete. Morgon hands him a large packet of folded pages. "I found this at the bottom of the lock box."

"This seems newer than the others," Mon-El comments. Unlike the love letters, which had clearly been lovingly read and reread, these pages resist a bit as he unfolds the packet, as if they've never been opened since first being folded and hidden away.

It isn't as easy as he expects once he sees the scrawl on the parchment. Though obviously written in some haste, the ink smudged in spots, Mon-El finds the handwriting to be oddly familiar, despite having seen only a few samples of the skill in his lifetime. Still, despite the difficulty, the script on the page forms into legible words and then to a cohesive language.

"Well?" Morgon urges.

Haltingly, Mon-El reads. "'I…haven't much time to write these words. Even now…traitors search the…palace grounds for me…for us.'"

"Traitors?" Morgon interrupts, suddenly perking up. "Are you certain?"

"Yes," Mon-El replies, holding up the parchment and showing him the word.

"Well the guy knew how to start a story, I'll give him that. Go on. What happens next?"

"'Even now the traitors search the palace grounds for us. A stasis jewel over her heart keeps my beloved Gata clinging to life…for the time being, but I have no doubt that their first priority is to finish what Seflan Mos started—to…murder…my wife and unborn son.'" Mon-El's head snaps up as the implication of the words in the letter sink in.

"What is it?" Morgon asks, in a near frantic state. "What happens next?"

"Do you know what this means?" Mon-El enquires, excitedly. When Morgon responds with a shake of his head, Mon-El rereads the opening portion of the letter once more, to make certain he read it correctly, before answering his own question. "It means the stories are all lies," he says, eyes widening. "Crowned Prince Trel Gand, Regent of Daxam, was struck from public record because he killed his wife and then killed himself. That's what the Daxcess says. The official story is that he killed her because he believed the child she carried wasn't his. That she was carrying a pure blood, and that this was Krypton's attempt to get a Kryptonian on the throne of Daxam."

"That's a stupid plan," Morgon points out.

Mon-El doesn't disagree. "This letter, written in his own hand and hidden in his own Code Locked box seems to point out that the official record is a lie."

"I could come up with a better plan in my sleep," Morgon says, still stuck on the holes in Krypton's purported scheme. "I _have_ come up with better plans in my sleep! Remember that time that we—"

"You're the one who wanted to sneak up here, do you want to hear this or not?"

"Right!" Morgon replies, shaking his head. "Continue."

"He must have written this not long after this Seflan Mos attacked the princess. A stasis jewel only has six hours of power in it when fully charged." Focusing his eyes back on the page, he continues to read. "'I cannot allow this to happen. I must save them at any cost. Even if it means doing the unthinkable. There's nothing I won't sacrifice to keep them alive – even if it means giving up the throne, or giving up on the dreams we made together. Let them have Daxam and do with it what they will. I care not,' he writes," Mon-El recites, lifting his eyes to see Morgon's reaction. "'The Trinitarians are welcome to it, so long as my heart lives. I must bequeath the charge of saving Daxam to someone else. Time is quickly running out and the day has proved there is only one whom I can trust. Even now, she prepares the way for us, directing the searching zealots away from our hiding place. I must tell this story now before the time runs out, so that someday, someone might know the truth and understand. I thought all was well, and convinced my wife of that, but I was a fool. I didn't see the knife that was pointed at my back.'"

Mon-El continues reading the letter, four long pages worth as Trel spills out his handwritten tale in hastily scribbled words, and practically unbelievable phrases. He paints a picture of palace intrigue gone too-long unchecked and trusted advisors turning against their sworn liege, some of it legible and some of it not. But between the lines, the letter's pages reveal a desolate, broken heart, as well as a hasty, reckless plan to stay alive, even if it means sacrificing everything, except that which is most important to the prince.

Mon-El stumbles over poorly written words, and some he doesn't even recognize as he nears the end of the letter. Rapt with attention, Morgon nearly forgets to breathe, all the while knowing that this is story is certain to have an unsatisfying ending.

"'It is with a slim thread of hope I pray that someday, somehow, this letter falls into the hands of someone who will know what to do with it, so that the truth might eventually be known. My brother is merely a puppet in their show and knows nothing of their plans. He is young and naive but there's no darkness in his heart – he trusts easily and will follow where led. If you are reading this letter, I beg you…find a way to save Krypton. In doing so…you may very well save the soul of Daxam in the process. Signed, His Royal Highness Trel Gand, Prince Regent of Daxam.' That's it," Mon-El announces, folding the letter back into its original configuration.

"What should we do now?" Morgon wonders.

"There's nothing to do," Mon-El answers. "This letter was written a hundred years ago. Krypton is fine…Daxam is fine, whatever he was afraid of…never happened."

"I know that. That's not what I was talking about."

"You mean about the other thing?" Mon-El asks, realizing some of the other more mysterious elements of the letter. "I'm not even sure what he was writing about," Mon-El confesses.

"We can find out," Morgon suggests, his eyes already lighting with the beginnings of a plan. "I feel like we should do something."

"Father will kill us," Mon-El points out.

"Who says he has to know?'

"He knows," Mon-El's eyes light with a spark of fear. "He always knows."

"We won't always be kids," Morgan promises, sagely. "One day…the Royal Seal will be yours." Morgon takes the letter from Mon-El, placing it back into the lockbox, and closing the lid, listening for the barely audible whirring sound that precedes its re-locking process. When the box is once more secure, he picks it by the handle. "There's much more to read and to learn. We should take this with us…for safekeeping." Morgon is a boy of insatiable curiosity, and Mon-El knows that he's claiming the box for more than simple safekeeping. The determined look in his green eyes tells Mon-El his older brother plans to read every, last letter and journal in the there.

And Mon-El knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that whatever Morgon decides to do…he's going to drag Mon-El along right beside him.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: 3/?

Author's Note: So I'm no scientific genius but I try to write not one, but two, in this chapter. I can't promise it's scientifically accurate, but I can promise that I probably put more effort into researching (and understanding said research) than your average Supergirl writer.

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

 _Forget all we said that night_

 _No, it doesn't even matter_

 _'Cause we both got split in two_

 _If you could spare an hour or so_

 _We'll go for lunch down by the river_

 _We can really talk it through_

 _And being here without you is like I'm waking up to_

 _Only half a blue sky_

 _Kinda there but not quite_

 _I'm walking around with just one shoe_

 _I'm half a heart without you_

-"Half a Heart" –One Direction

Toiling tirelessly, a crew works to repair the damage done by Mon-El while in the throes of his meltdown. Alex and Kara stop to watch the progress for a few moments on their way to the R&D lab. Two work men use trowels to smooth the wet cement over the wall damaged when she and Mon-El flew into it. Another pair carefully replace a glass panel on the balcony, destroyed by Mon-El's unexpected heat vision.

"What made this happen?" she asks her sister. "Winn tested him for abilities when he first woke up and there wasn't a hint of flying or heat vision."

"Our minds can do amazing things when it comes to protecting us from emotional trauma, Kara. We can block out entire portions of our lives, as if they never existed. But it's more like surgery performed with a baseball bat than with a laser scalpel. It's crude and without finesse, and instead of only cutting away the unwanted memories it takes other parts with it as well."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that…he had these abilities all along. I'm saying that his mind was repressing them. And there's every chance that he might continue to repress them. That every moment he's in his own mind, he may be convincing himself to disassociate from those trigger memories again."

How easy it would be, Kara thinks, to go back to the way things were before it all fell apart. To have another go at it, and this time to do it right. But she knows, in the end, that would only serve her desires and not his needs. She sighs with disappointment, her mind already predicting the answer to the question she's about to ask. "That wouldn't be a good thing, would it?"

"If he has the chance to repress his memories again, there's every likelihood he'll bury them deep – so deep they could be lost forever."

"Would that be so bad?"

"It depends," Alex shrugs, her eyes filling with sadness. "Which parts of him are you willing to lose?"

"I don't understand," Kara shakes her head. She lies to herself, when deep down—way down—she senses the truth Alex regrets being forced to provide.

"Which parts can you live without? His empathy? His compassion? His humor? That part of him that looks at you so softly you want to curl up in his arms?" When her sister shyly turns away from her, Alex places a hand on her Kara's shoulder. "Don't think that I haven't seen the looks that pass between you two. A blind person could see the way you two feel about each other. But Kara…people who disassociate are rarely the better for it. The missing parts are usually the best parts. The mind is funny that way."

"I just don't want him to relive his trauma?"

"Are you sure that's it?" Alex asks. "Or is it that a part of you is more comfortable believing that an egg-shaped pod gave birth to him at your feet? That Mon-El didn't exist until he came into your life?"

"That's not…why would you say that?"

"Because three days ago you stood in the conference room and told us about Mon-El's step-brother, and I could tell from the look on your face that you didn't know any more about him than what you were telling us."

"I just found out about him the night before?" Kara defends herself, her spine straightening, arms crossing at her chest. She puffs up like a balloon filling with air.

"That's precisely my point," Alex nods. "How long has he been here…how long have you been sleeping with him? How many questions have you asked about his family? About his life on Daxam?"

Kara opens her mouth to answer, but then chokes on the answer, her chest deflating in defeat. Had she really never asked him those questions? About his parents? There had been brief moments, unintentional entrées he let slip, where she felt compelled to get more of his story. But she never just…asked. Like she didn't want to know, didn't want to challenge her own narrative of him.

She loves this man—loves his heart and his soul. Loves the way his eyes soften when they meet hers, or the way he so openly gives her what she needs when they're in each other's arms. But she doesn't know his birthday, or the kinds of games he played as a child, his favorite subject in school, and how he managed to become a palace guard without any fight training. She doesn't know _any_ of those things.

Because she never bothered to ask.

"I'm not saying these things to hurt you, Kara. But to show you that…perhaps if you knew more about the man behind those soft eyes, about what made him who he is and what he'd been through, you might not be quite so prepared to bargain his memories away. Traumatic or not."

Kara tears up again, blindsided by the truth in sister's words. She can always count on Alex to tell her the truth, no matter how painful, no matter how much she wants to deny it when it's offered. And Alex wasn't the only one to serve up truths on a silver platter recently. A platter she'd tried to ignore.

"James was right," she sighs, wiping at a rogue tear that escapes the well of her eye. Kara leans forward, placing her forearms on the railing of the balcony, watching the workmen move back and forth below, like a goddess overseeing her inferiors as they toil away. "I'm seeing it now more and more…." She drifts off thoughtfully as events replay in her mind like a montage of moments she wishes she could repeat, only better. "Kryptonian arrogance," she finishes. "I didn't want to think of Mon-El as a person who existed before landing on Earth. I just wanted him to be the man that Rao made for me…sent to me… as if he had been formed from stardust and placed at my feet."

Leaning on the balcony beside her sister, Alex bumps Kara's shoulder with hers. "Kara, I'm not saying that none of that is true…metaphorically speaking," she cajoles, hoping to stop the faith from leaking out of her sister's eyes along with those tears. "I'm simply saying that maybe a few things happened between the stardust and Mon-El being placed at your feet."

"Things that damaged him," Kara concludes.

"So it would seem."

Watching the workers for a few more minutes, Kara wonders if she'll be able to put Mon-El back together as easily as the DEO is put back to rights. What will she find in his eyes when he wakes at last? Relief? Distrust? Disappointment? Will he still be so emotionally giving, or will he hold himself back from her?

"They're waiting for you in the lab," Alex reminds her.

"Right," Kara replies, absentmindedly, before shoving away from the balcony railing and heading towards the lab.

The moment she walks into the lab it's like being swarmed by puppies who've been anxiously awaiting her return from a long vacation. Winn Schott and Cisco Ramon could not possibly look different. Winn, with his close-cropped, dirty-blonde hair with blue eyes, and the white skin of an Anglo who spends far too much of his days behind the screen of a computer and not nearly enough time outside catching rays. In contrast, Cisco Ramon has the bronze skin and deep brown eyes that declare his Latino heritage, paired with messy, shoulder-length hair he's constantly tucking behind one ear.

Despite their physical differences, their wide, toothy grins and the sparkling excitement in their eyes are so identical, they might as well be twins.

"Alex said you have something," she says, offering them the conversation starter for which they are clearly waiting. What follows is a mind-meld unlike anything Kara can claim to have seen. Not even when she worked with Cisco and Felicity on Earth-1 during the Dominator invasion.

"We've made some discoveries," Winn says, nearly coming out of his skin.

"Formed some theories," Cisco adds.

"Start with what we _know_ ," she insists, not sure she can handle to two of them postulating about theories. Not without getting some solid ground under her feet first.

"Okay," Cisco nods. "His cells are generating an electrical field—"

"We knew that, he's been siphoning—"

"No," Cisco waves a finger, his eyes closed, a near-blissful smile on his face. "Not from the siphoning. His cells are generating the electrical field all on their own."

"We all generate electrical fields," Winn exposits.

"In small amounts, this electricity is what sends messages to and from our brains," Cisco clarifies, his hands making inarticulate motions as though the short-hand sign language might help her understand. It does not.

"Sparks our muscles to work," Winn nods.

"Right," Cisco's head bobbles in a similar manner. "But our boy is a whole different thing. He's a force of nature."

"Literally," Winn agrees.

"Literally," his twin echoes, his eyebrows climbing almost to the top of his hairline. "He's a human capacitor, for lack of a better term, storing electricity and discharging in the form of superpowers."

"Like I store yellow-sun radiation," she assumes.

"Well yes and no," Cisco shakes his head, tucking a long strip of his bangs that had fallen into his face, behind his ear. "You don't _store_ yellow-sun radiation any more than a car stores gasoline. If you did, you'd have a glut of it if you went too long without using your powers."

"Your muscles would have gotten huge when you were kid, before you became Supergirl," Winn provides her with imagery.

"Instead, your body simply takes what it needs to maintain an equilibrium."

"Like you, Mon-El can absorb yellow-sun radiation and, like you, his body only takes what it needs to keep his body functioning at peak. It strengthens and fuels his muscles – his strength and speed. But the electrical field generated by his cells is what makes him different from you, Kara."

"We come from the same solar system, what makes him so different? Is it because Daxam was closer to the sun?"

Cisco and Winn share a look, already communicating non-verbally after only a few days of acquaintance. In unison, they look back at her, their heads shaking as though on a synchronized swivel. "The Well of Stars," they answer.

"What about it?"

"He floated around in there for decades," Winn supplies.

"Fermenting," Cisco characterizes, his eyebrows a stark straight line across his forehead as the wheels inside his head turn.

"Fermenting? Cisco?" she queries.

"Right! So Mon-El was fermenting in The Well of Stars, floating in a soup of photons, hadrons, baryons and…we're theorizing—"

"Gravitons," Winn blurts, stealing Cisco's thunder.

"—and too many other ' _ons_ ' to mention. It sounds crazy, but I think when he flew he wasn't _actually_ flying."

"He was flying, all right," she insists, recalling with perfect clarity the shock she felt to see him hovering a foot above the ground.

Cisco shakes his head. "He's using the gravitons that now permeate his skin to generate an anti-gravitational field around his body. If he can learn to control it, this ability should be virtually indistinguishable from flying."

"Virtually," she echoes, catching the one word that piqued her interest.

Winn grins. "In theory, if he learns to expand that anti-gravitational field he could make others fly with him. Guess who my new best friend is!"

"In theory," Cisco reiterates.

"What about the rest of it?" she asks. "The heat vision?"

"I just need to interrupt the electrical field around his eyes." Cisco scampers over to one of the metal-surfaced tables in the lab and retrieves a pair of glasses. They are thicker and less fashionable than the ones she chose for Mon-El months ago. "These glasses contain a micro electromagnetic pulse generator, which will dampen the electrical field whenever he's wearing them. It's a sinewave pulse, so it shouldn't affect any of his other abilities. Easy-peasy." He hands the glasses to Kara, who accepts them gingerly as though they're made of crystal.

"He says…like he didn't just _invent_ new science to make those," Winn gushes, clearly enamored with his new friend. "In less than a day."

Examining the glasses carefully, both internally and externally, Kara notes that they are thicker than normal at the bridge of the nose and where the arms hover over the temples. Inside, there are two tiny devices on either side, with wires threading though the upper frames to meet another device in the center. "So when he wakes up, we can take him out of containment because he'll have control over his heat vision?" she asks, allowing her excitement to peek through the waves of sadness that have engulfed her the last few days.

"Complete control," Cisco confirms, "as long as he's wearing those."

Emotionally overwhelmed, Kara throws her arms around Cisco's neck, hugging him with all of the gratitude and relief she feels inside.

"Okay," Cisco chuckles at first, patting her back. Over her shoulder he tosses a smile and a wink in Winn's direction, but a second later, when her arms tighten like a vise around him, the novelty wears off. "Too tight," he wheezes, his entire body wincing. "Don't break the scientist."

"Sorry, sorry!" she grimaces, jumping away from him as though he's made of lava.

"It's no problem," he groans, before taking a long draught of air. "Just happy to help."

"Modest," Winn claims, leading Kara to believe that she's going to be in for days of gushing after Cisco returns to Earth-1. Possibly weeks of moping to follow.

"Any ideas on why he's not waking up?" she asks, hoping she's not pressing her luck.

"That's Caitlin's area of expertise," Cisco answers. "Hers and your mom's. But last I spoke with her she seemed pretty frustrated with their lack of progress. I'm sorry to say."

"I've updated your mom and Dr. Snow on everything we learned and they've taken some steps to make sure there's not a repeat performance of his Regan MacNeil impersonation-"

"Good movie," Cisco injects, his head bobbing up and down as he reaches over to fist bump Winn. "Classic."

"Anyway, there will be no exploding of glass and diving for cover if…when… _WHEN_ he wakes up," Winn reassures.

"Thank you, Cisco," Kara effuses, grabbing him by the hand, but careful not to crush it. "For dropping everything to come here, you and Caitlin both. For figuring out how to help him, once he wakes up. You have no idea how much I appreciate everything that you've done, and I know that Mon-El will too."

Suddenly overcome with shyness in the face of her profound gratitude, Cisco clears his throat and nods, but says nothing more.

"I should go check on him," she decides, looking down at the glasses in her hands as though they are a symbol of newly bestowed hope. "I've already been away from him for too long.

"Sure," Winn nods.

She doesn't even realize she's turned on her super speed until she's standing outside of his containment cell. He looks different than the last time she was here a few hours ago.

"We've covered him in a blanket that's lined with polypropylene," her mother informs her.

"We're hoping that the blanket will dampen the surplus electrical conductivity happening in his cells. After the incident, Dr. Danvers attached him to electrical leads, allowing his body to absorb electricity to speed his healing process. His skull was…severely damaged," Caitlin winced, suddenly aware that her occasional struggles with bedside manner were coming to the fore. Research medicine allowed her to keep a comfortable distance between the blunt force of her words and the patients that might be hurt by them. "That sounded worse than it actually was," she course-corrects.

"No," Kara negates with a shake of her head, her fists clenching at her side. "Everyone tries to downplay the damage I did, but I know my own strength. I was hitting an invulnerable man hard enough to put his lights out, and then…all of the sudden…he wasn't invulnerable anymore. If he was human he'd be dead, and I would have killed him."

"Honey," Eliza Danvers says, placing a hand on her shoulder, "he isn't human, and these are extraordinary circumstances."

"Circumstances I caused."

"It's not that simple," Eliza disagrees. "One way or another this was going to happen. The longer his psyche simmered the smaller the trigger would have needed to be to set him off, and the greater the resulting explosion. If it hadn't happened when it did…it could have been triggered by anything at any time afterwards, Kara. What if it had happened in the bar, or on the street? What if you hadn't been there to contain him?"

Her mother's point of view made her feel marginally better, if only for the reason that her response to his meltdown saved untold people from injury or death, if it had occurred outside the insular bubble of the DEO.

"And there's also the possibility that any damage caused by a public meltdown could have set your alien acceptance movement back by years, if not decades," Caitlin adds. "On Earth-1 we have enough trouble with people accepting the existence of meta-humans."

"It wasn't the most ideal circumstances, Honey, but it could have been far, far worse." Eliza's skill at applying a silver lining to the darkest of dark clouds has not waned in the years since Kara has grown from pre-teen to adult.

"Can I sit with him for a while?" she asks, wondering if the presence of the polypropylene blanket will prevent her from taking up her earlier sentry position.

"Of course," Eliza says. "Talk to him. We never know what might reach him."

Kara nods as her mother opens the hermetically sealed door of the containment chamber. Gazing at the deceptively peaceful looking form of her unconscious boyfriend, Kara hears the hiss-pop-suction of the door sealing her in. Eliza presses another button, this one connected to a speaker.

"I'll be right here," Eliza informs her, her voice tinny and over-amplified by the speakers. Kara can't help but feel that her adoptive mother is talking about more than just her physical presence.

"I know," she acknowledges over her shoulder. This room, like the other cells, is constructed of materials impenetrable by Supergirl. Tested and Certified. Without her mother to release her, Kara is just as trapped inside the quarantine as Mon-El. She tries not to let the door sealing behind her sound like the heavy clank of a slamming jail cell, but is unsuccessful. Each time she enters this room it takes her a moment to adjust to the feeling of being trapped.

Her chair sits at his bedside, just as she left it a few hours earlier. Slightly off-kilter with one rounded foot missing from its front leg, the chair appears disheartened somehow, as though it lost hope while waiting for her return. Kara eases into the chair, finding the slight clank-clank of the empty-footed leg striking the ground comforting somehow, as the chair rocks back and forth beneath the force of her added weight.

Burrowing her hand beneath the blanket weighted heavily with polypropylene, she finds his hand and pulls it out from beneath the blanket, kissing the back of it. Kara wraps her thumb around his, grasping at his hand as through preparing to drag him back from a precipice she can't see, much less comprehend.

"I told you I'd be back," she whispers. With her free hand she strokes his cheek, careful not to disturb the wired leads attached to temple. They took the opportunity while he was vulnerable to place an IV port in the crook of his elbow. Her mother and Dr. Snow had taken copious blood samples at the time, and hope to retrieve more if… _when_ …he wakes up, for comparison. But even without the IV port, Kara is still amazed by the number of machines they could attach to him that don't involve pricking his skin.

A pair of dark goggles covers his eyes, not to block any beams of super-heated light that might emerge from his eyes when they open, but rather to measure his eye movements. In concert with tiny leads pressed to several locations on his skull, his brain waves are constantly monitored as Dr. Snow and her mother analyze its data output for the slightest change. Kara slips the goggles from his face and sets them aside.

There's a brief kerfuffle outside of the quarantine cell as Caitlin attempts to determine why Mon-El's eye movements ceased without warning or a typical transition. Through the transparent barrier, Kara makes eye contact with the scientist, silently informing her that she needs time with her boyfriend, sans the goggles that make him look like someone she doesn't know.

Also different is the beard that has grown into a bushy scruff in his sleep. For a moment Kara considers using her laser vision to give him a shave, but finds that she likes growth of hair on his chin and upper lip. It makes him seem…regal…somehow – like a sleeping Prince Charming, awaiting only her kiss to awaken him from this cursed slumber.

"I'm sorry I was gone for so long," she tells him, squeezing his hand tightly with hers, hoping he'll somehow sense her presence. "Something's happened that…I just…I can't tell you this while you're unconscious," she decides. "Because I'll just have to do it again when you wake up and I don't think I can go through that twice."

His eyes glide back and forth beneath closed eyelids and she wonders what he's seeing in his own mind to make his Rapid Eye Movement so frenetic. "I'm here, baby," she whispers, leaning closer to his ear. "Can you hear me at all in there? Or have you shut me out completely?" The thought of it sends fear slicing through her like a lightning strike. "Are you angry at me in there?" A tear she never felt building slips down her cheek. "I wouldn't blame you one bit…not for a second. I wasn't…I wasn't what you needed," she confesses. "I see that now. But I need you to come out of this so I can tell you how sorry I am. So I can try to be what you need."

He doesn't move, but for his eyes he doesn't so much as twitch. Whatever is going on inside of him…it's not making its way to an external expression of any kind. Rather than finding it soothing, she is disturbed by his stillness, the outward tranquility she senses… _knows_ …is hiding something far more chaotic. If only she could be certain, he is safe in there and not reliving his personal hell over and over. She'd give anything to look inside of his mind and get a glimpse of what is holding him there.

"Are you back there again?" she wonders idly, stroking his face. "Is that why you won't wake up?" Kara sighs deeply, sinking against the backrest of her molded chair, trying to combat the despair threatening to overwhelm her. "Just the other day you told me you wouldn't go back if you could, and now I can't get you to leave it. Are you happy in there?" she asks, afraid he'll open his eyes and answer in the affirmative.

"I know how hard it is," she confesses, "to leave your home, even when you know it's a dream. Even when there's as much to come back to as you're leaving behind. It's the hardest thing in the world, baby. Hard enough to break you. I just wish I could help you find your way back, to remember that you have a life here, even if it's not perfect sometimes. I wish I could be there with you," she whispers longingly, prayerfully.

It takes a moment for those words to sink into her own mind, as if she'd put them into the universe without expectation of fulfillment, only to have the possibility of fruition suddenly present itself. Had there been a lightbulb over her head, it would have lit up with blinding whiteness and then promptly exploded with the force of it.

"That's it!" she exclaims. In the space of her next heartbeat, she's banging on the chamber door demanding exit. Eliza ask what's wrong before the door has a chance to slide open with hiss-pop. "I have an idea," she explains, "but I need Alex."

"She mentioned something about meeting with J'onn," Eliza supplies.

"Thanks, Mom. I'll be back."

Less than minute later, she's bursting into the conference room, where J'onn and Alex have their heads huddled at one end of the long table. "Kara, did something happen?" Alex jumps from the table, her eyes widening with concern.

"Black Mercy," Kara replies.

"Come again?" J'onn demands, his hands finding his hips.

"The Virtual Reality helmet that Maxwell Lord retrofitted so that you could go into my Black Mercy dreams, do we still have it?"

"Of course," Alex shrugs, "somewhere buried in storage. But why would you…you want to go into his head!" Taking less than a second to catch up with her sister.

"It will work, won't it?" Kara interrogates. "You said yourself, it's like he's still awake, but his body doesn't know it. That's how it was with me when I was in the grip of the Black Mercy, right?"

"Your brain waves were slightly different," Alex side-eyes J'onn as though seeking assistance.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" J'onn wonders, rather more ineffectually than Alex might have preferred.

"Can you fix the device so that it will work?" Kara's skin flushes with desperation. She's had it with sitting at his bedside and feeling helpless, she needs to _do_ something.

Alex recognizes the desperation and frustration written across her sister's face and makes the decision to do whatever it takes to help her, even if it's dangerous. Determining that perhaps…she needs to have a little faith, too. "I'll talk to Winn, maybe if we put our heads together—"

"Thank you, Alex," Kara breathes, throwing her arms around her sister before she can even finish. "And I'm sure Cisco can help too. He and Winn are getting along like a house on fire."

"I will do this on one condition," Alex hedges, her brown eyes boring resolutely into Kara's blue.

"Anything," Kara agrees, a genuine smile crossing her face for the first time in days.

"Take a shower," Alex says, "and get something to eat. Maybe sit under the sun lamp for a while."

"But—"

"You're running on fumes, Kara. Everyone can see it. You have circles under your eyes and I have _never_ seen that before! If you used this device, you will need to be at full strength. There's no predicting how long you'll be in there and you won't be able to eat, and the radiation from the yellow sun lamp wreaks havoc on the helmet's signal, so you won't be able to refuel that way."

"So I'll need to top up," Kara gathers with a nod.

"Exactly."

"Fine," she agrees. "Get started on the helmet, and I'll grab a few pizzas. Tinkering always makes Winn hungry."

"I'll have the usual," Alex replies, one side of her mouth lifting up in a half smile.

"Of course."

An hour later Kara returns to the DEO with a dozen pizzas, three of which she eats while watching Winn and Cisco huddle over the device, one taking notes while the other makes calculations.

Somewhere in her mind, she imagined a few quick turns of a screwdriver, a handful of spliced wires and she'd be off on a new adventure in the Innerspace of Mon-El's dreams but, as it turned out, it wasn't quite that easy to retro-fit the already retro-fitted helmets. Winn and Cisco labored and debated for days over the numbers and the dangers, and all the pitfalls that could come if they got it wrong. Cisco was even forced to travel back to Earth-2 for a day to consult with someone called Harry, and then to Earth-1 for another day to build a specialized piece of equipment to merge with the helmet that would help translate her brainwaves to match Mon-El's.

Finally, after four days of anxious waiting on Kara's part, Winn makes the last adjustments to the helmet, a tiny screw driver in one hand, and a folded slice of Meat Lover's in the other. Cisco dexterously employs both hands to splice two new wires into the bright bundle of multi-colored spaghetti already there. After twisted a bit of copper wiring together he looks up at Winn and nods, communicating his completion non-verbally. Winn twists one last screw and echoes Cisco's nod.

"Zatsabouit," Winn garbles, half-chewed pizza pocketed into the side of his cheek like an underachieving chipmunk.

Kara polishes off another slice of Hawaiian while sitting atop a nearby lab table, her feet dangling two feet from the ground. "Huh?' she asks, her eyebrows crinkling in confusion.

Winn chews at his mouthful of pizza, Winn waves his tiny screwdriver in Kara's direction. But Cisco interrupts before Winn can swallow his food. "He said…that's about it."

"It's done?" she queries, lighting up with excitement as she hops down from the table.

"Well…the helmet is done," Cisco shrugs with one shoulder.

"I still have to rewrite the software," Winn finishes.

"What are you talking about? What's wrong with the software?"

"It's lacking something important," Alex supplies. "Winn and I talked about it while you were sitting with Mon-El. He wasn't here the last time this was used."

"Because I was _kicked_ _out_!" he interjects, before explaining to Cisco in an aside, "I didn't work here then."

"He's going to write software that includes a back door—" Alex clarifies.

"It will be a door—" Cisco nods.

"Literally," Winn finishes.

"When I was in your head, Kara, there was no safety net. It was either stay in there with you until you were convinced it was fake or be forcibly pulled out by J'onn, which could have had damaging consequences to my brain, since the helmet had been untested. And this isn't like Black Mercy, Kara, where you defeat its deceit and it detaches and crawls away. You'll be up against Mon-El's mind and he might be harder to convince. Worst case scenario, there's also the possibility that he's lucid in there and just doesn't know _how_ to wake up. This way you'll have a way out if you need it. For both of you."

"Shouldn't take too long," Cisco adds in a blasé manner, as though his confidence in Winn is a forgone conclusion. Alex nods at him, as though thanking him for adding his reassurances.

"You'll have enough time for a shower." Alex instructs, tossing a glance over her shoulder at the guys as she walks Kara from the room. "You'll need to wear a hospital gown so that we can attach leads to your body, so we can monitor your vitals. I've left one in the locker room for you, along with your pills."

"Pills?" Kara asks, and then, before Alex can explain, "Oh!"

"You should go ahead and start…assuming my calculations are correct. No time like the present."

Kara nods her head, confirming that her sister knows her clockwork-like cycle just as well as she does. Her forehead crinkles with confusion, before asking, "But doesn't it have to be taken every day? What if I'm under longer than that? Maybe I should wait until after..."

"Take the pill," Alex urges, squeezing her sister's bicep, "and call it a leap of faith."

Kara licks her lips, her throat tightening as her eyes tears up. She's lost track of how many tears have been spilled since The Meltdown. All she wants is the man she loves back in her arms, and as the days have passed, her faith has dwindled to the smallest of embers. "I will," she whispers.

"Then two hours under the sun lamp," Alex demands. "Or…you can always catch some rays above the stratosphere. Your choice."

She chooses the latter, to no one's surprise. Even at her worst, flying always improves her bleakest outlook, helps her think when she has particularly difficult problem or solve, or soothes her when she's sad. At the moment, though, Kara finds herself afflicted by all three.

It's always been a solitary activity for her, flying above the clouds. In the past, events have necessitated her flying with J'onn or with Kal in the service of her city of the planet. Coming up here, however, where even the clouds are far below her, like white smudges on a blue and green canvas, is always a lonely, silent endeavor, where nothing disturbs her but the torturous intensity of her own thoughts. Sometimes, it's what she wants – the solitude – to take a break from the mantle of it all, if only for a few moments. And sometimes she comes to listen for those cries in the night, the ever-present racing of frightened heartbeats, and desperate pleas for mercy – mercy she is often the only one to provide.

If Cisco is right, maybe she doesn't have to be alone up here anymore. Perhaps if… _when_ …he learns to fly, Mon-El will join her here, and he can be her partner, her true mate, in yet another way. But first, she must help him find the way out of whatever labyrinth he's managed to build for himself in that unfathomably resilient mind of his. Having had enough of floating, soaking up radiation, and feeling better than she has in three days, Kara shifts her direction back to the DEO, miles below, and switches on her speed.

"It's time to get my boyfriend back," she says aloud, though her sonic boom swallows the sound of it.


	4. Chapter 4

_You've done nothing at all, to make me love you less  
So come back when you can  
You left your home  
You're so far from  
Everything you know  
Your big dream is  
Crashing down and out your door  
Wake up and dream once more_

\- Come Back When You Can – Barcelona

Chapter 4/?

"The mind is a very powerful thing, which is why this is dangerous, Kara," her sister explains.

"We've gone over the risks," Kara assures her in a rushed tone. Feeling exposed wearing nothing more than a thin hospital gown in a quarantine area filled with people here to observe and protect. She's never felt less like Supergirl. Anxious to get this underway, Kara hops up onto the edge of the bed that's been moved into the room and squeezed next to Mon-El's.

"But you don't…not really," Alex continues. "You don't understand how vulnerable you'll be in there. You might not have your powers, and just because it's all in your head doesn't mean you can't be hurt. Take it from me…a kick in the gut still feels like a kick in the gut. You could be Kara Danvers in there, and not Kara Zor-El. Do you understand? Just don't do anything foolish. Don't try to be a hero." Reacting to Kara's incredulous expression, Alex smirks, trying to find the humor despite her fear, "I know that's asking the impossible – just try to stay safe."

"I love him…and I'm partially responsible for his condition," she reminds her sister. "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get him back. It's no less than what you would do."

Lifting the interface helmet, careful not to tangle the spaghetti wiring, Alex wedges it onto Kara's head, fitting it firmly so that the connector leads attach to the skin at her temples and along her hairline. A dark black visor covers Kara's eyes blacking out her vision, so that her sister must guide her into a safe position on the bed beside Mon-El's.

"Okay?" Alex asks.

Wriggling a little until she finds a comfortable position, she gives her sister a thumbs-up to avoid the movement of a head nod. "Okay," she replies softly.

Continuing preparations, Alex's hands slide blindly under the thin crepe of Kara's gown, attaching the lead wires from the EKG monitor to the round pads already attached to her chest. They will be able to monitor her heart rate while she's interfacing, as well as her brain with Cisco and Winn's latest adjustments.

"Kara, I've programmed an exit into the interface," Winn leans in close, placing a hand on her shoulder. "It should never be far away from where you are when you're ready, and I hope I've made it obvious enough. The interface should take you directly to him, but after that it will be like playing an open world game, limited only by his imagination and memory."

"Thanks, Winn," Kara whispers.

"Look…just tell him he's got friends out here too," Winn works up the courage to confess.

"Tell him the same goes for me," J'onn adds.

"We don't know how long this will take," Alex interjects, "so we're going to set up a schedule so that someone will be here the entire time in case you need to be—"

"I won't," Kara insists. "I won't need to be pulled out and don't you dare let them do it. I'm not coming back without him. I can't."

"Kara," Alex sighs.

"No." She bites down hard on her lip and sets her chin firmly.

"Stubborn like her sister," J'onn explains to group, as if they were new to Kara's headstrong tendencies.

"That's a Danvers trait, by the way," Eliza added. Kara is comforted by the sound of her mother's voice coming nearby from the foot of the bed.

"House of El, too," Kara chuckles, her teeth chattering nervously.

"Nature and nurture," Alex replies, echoing her sister's chuckle. "He doesn't stand a chance."

"I just hope he knows that," Kara mutters.

From the darkness, she hears Cisco's voice, and this time there's a serious note to it, rather than the confident bluster of a genius inventing new science and having a blast doing it. "Ready to go down the rabbit hole, Alice?"

"Ready," she replies.

"This might feel a little odd," Kara hears a flip switching and suddenly the interface hums to life, vibrating around her temples and scalp. Her hair raises from the follicles with a bright tingle and she curls her fingers into a fist, resisting the urge to scratch her head.

Her super hearing detects the sound of a dial cranking notch by notch, the whiny hum of the inner workings of the helmet rising in pitch with each click, and then a tiny pinprick of light appears in the distance of the fathomless darkness. The rabbit hole. Except that it's not at all like falling down a rabbit hole, it's more like the rabbit hole has teeth and it charges at her, intent on gobbling her down in a single bite. Keeping Mon-El in mind, she leans into it, allowing the bright light of the rabbit hole to barrel toward her, growing larger and larger, filling the field of her vision until it circles around her taking shape and form. There's practically an audible popping noise, as if she's just apparated into Mon-El's mind (which, in a way…she kind of did).

Clasping her hands together, she's surprised to discover they feel real, tangible, no different than the outside world. She's dressed in white, similar to the outfit she wore in her pod as she was jettisoned from Krypton. Long white sleeves that come down far enough to touch the backs of her hands, the blouse flaring out at the hemline, on her legs are matching skin-tight trousers, and on her feet a pair of white slippers that remind her of taking ballet class. She'd been fourteen and discovering that her Kryptonian heritage didn't exempt her from the gangly awkwardness of girlhood puberty. Her foray into the finer of arts had not lasted long. It had been, as Kara later discovered, just another attempt by Eliza to help her alien foster daughter find her place in this new world.

Circling around slowly, Kara's eyes take it all in; the deep blood red of the terracotta-like floor, walls draped in ancient tapestries, and a ceiling that seems slightly askew in a way she doesn't understand. No one's been here in decades, as far as she can tell, especially if the dust on the furniture is any indication.

Completing a single revolution, she comes back around to the start, where something catches her eye. Two young boys, huddled closely together, their eyes wide as saucers, gazes glued to her, they stand a few feet away from her as though they witnessed her sudden appearance. Which they probably did.

"Hello," she greets softly, holding out her hands in a gesture meant to be non-threatening. "Don't be frightened." Taking a moment to study the paralyzed youths, she recognizes the smaller one almost immediately as the target of her search. Her own crystal blue eyes widen with this sudden revelation when they meet his heartbreakingly familiar grays. Never in a million years might she have considered that he would be a child when she arrived. "Mon-El," she gasps, audibly.

Impossibly, the boys' eyes widen further, their jaws dropping open. Heads turning, as if on a swivel, they make eye contact, their eyes holding while silent communication passes between them. Their heads turn back toward her and, simultaneously, their jaws drop open, identical screams emitting from their mouths.

"Ahhhhhhhhh! Remnant!" they scream together.

Taking off in a run, both boys split between her, each heading separately for the door in a mad scramble to escape. "No wait!" she cries. "I just want to talk…to you." However, by the time she finishes, they are gone. Looking around at the now empty room, she sighs, defeated. "Well…that's just great!"

So far, this is not going according to plan. Mon-El wasn't supposed to be a child when she was dropped right smack dab in the middle of his psyche—or at least it hadn't been a consideration of hers when she'd been pushing Winn to retrofit the neural interface.

Regardless of what she'd thought at the time, she must work with what she has in the here and now, and that, whether she likes it or not, is a Mon-El in child-form. "Perhaps I can reach him," she says aloud. "If I can get him to remember me, then maybe the adult Mon-El will return." She wonders what might happen to Mon-El on the outside it it's his child-like version that decides to take the escape hatch. Could the consequences be catastrophic?

Not willing to take that chance, Kara resolves to reach through Mon-El's pre-pubescent persona and find the man she knows is in there somewhere, and draw him out. All she needs to do is to think like a kid and kids like…adventure. Anything that will get them into trouble.

Kara follows them out of the room, searching the corridor but finding it, not only disturbingly desolate, but also as neglected and pathetic as the room from whence she had come. Despite its desolation and state of disrepair, it is clear her surroundings were once rich and sumptuous, to a degree of decadence beyond even the wealthiest of Daxamite families. All but one.

"Is this the palace?" she asks the empty hallway. Searching for some answer to her current mystery, she casts about for some evidence. It takes her less than a minute to find a portrait on the wall, its protective cover ravaged by suspiciously-sized fingerprints. Kara didn't need a fingerprint kit to guess the owners of these particular set of grubby fingers.

Peeling back to the gray, shimmery cover, she's confronted with a pair of sparkling eyes that practically mirror her own, in a way she finds breathtaking. The portrait's subject, sitting regally in a high-backed throne, smiles brightly, suppressing not a single iota of her happiness as her hand rests on the small bulge of her belly. A bitter taste of jealously fills the back of her throat as Kara's heart clenches in her chest, her own hand drawn her abdomen. Though there's nothing there to celebrate, nor to protect.

Curiosity and envy overwhelming her, she seeks the portrait's nameplate. "Her Royal Highness, Princess Gata. Wife to Prince Trel, House of Gand," she reads. She realizes two things when she reads that plate. "I _am_ in the palace," she verbalizes the first conclusion, based on the evidence in front of her.

The second realization is that it's possible the neural interface dropped her into the middle of a childhood memory, rather than some fantasy-oriented mental construct designed to insulate him from things his conscious mind didn't wish to recall. In order for his mind to replicate it in such detail, Mon-El must have seen this portrait as a child. She finds it telling that his subconscious has taken to him to what is possibly the only thing on Daxam that ties them together, even if only subconsciously. What other reason could there be for him to mentally revisit the portrait of a Kryptonian woman they had spoken about only a handful of days ago?

Perhaps his conscious mind is keeping him lost in here, but his subconscious is leaving him breadcrumbs to show him the way home. All she needs to do, she hopes, is get him to remember that there's something to come home to.

Following the carpet runner down the corridor, she finds a stairwell that heads but one direction, down. Based on her knowledge of Daxam architecture, she surmises that they are on the top floor of the Grand Palace of Daxam, which, it is common knowledge, houses the quarters of the Supreme Regent. It offers the best views of the Capitol City, from all sides of the pyramid, where the monarch can watch over their people like a god from top of Val-Or. However, if this is the quarters of the Daxam's king, then why does it seem so…abandoned? Why does not the current monarch, King Vir Gand—if memory serves—occupy it?

All questions for later, she determines with a shake of her head.

If this is the palace, then her logic concludes that the boy Mon-El accompanies must be the prince. Perhaps it was custom for bodyguards and princes to grow up together, to form a stronger bond between them. It is brilliant in a way, she grimaces at the thought, not unlike overfeeding a lamb in preparation for its slaughter.

Part of her wants to rush down the stairs, grab him, and take him away from this place; spirit him away from Daxam, where he can grow up learning the difference between right and wrong. But she can't change his past, all she can do is help him process what happened long ago. And even if changing the past _were_ an item on the menu, the results were unpredictable, and usually untenable for the person left to remember both timelines. A lesson, with its ongoing fallout, her friend Barry Allen is still painfully dealing with back on Earth-1.

Not surprisingly, she passes no one on the stairs, indicating that the top floor of the palace is not an oft-visited destination. Bravely, she lingers a bit on the next floor down, observing the hustle and bustle of the servants moving from room to room, cleaning, repairing and taking little notice of the strange woman in white in their midst.

She, on the other hand, soaks in what she sees. Their impeccably tidy uniforms with asymmetrical hemlines, falling lower on one side of their hips than the other. Regardless of gender, all of the servants wear matching trousers of linen-like material; though the men's pants are cuffed at the bottom while the women's gently flare out. Details are so rich in Mon-El subconscious that she can even hear the sound of the material _whishing_ as a servant races by her.

The servant glances up, sees her, but somehow—Kara can tell—doesn't _see_ her. She's reminded suddenly of a conversation she had with Winn a few weeks ago. It was a conversation about his favorite video game, so she was only half-paying attention while unobtrusively trying to form an exit strategy, but the gist of it had been that invariably the most compelling characters end up being NPCs (he calls them) or Non-Playable Characters. You can interact with them, even have conversations, but you can't 'play' them and they frequently are not integral to the game's main mission. Kara wonders if the servants aren't like NPCs, just around to provide scenery and to enrich the detail of the world in which his subconscious is trapping him.

A whisper of excited voices catches her attention.

"I dare you," one voice challenges.

"You're the one who ran first," the other, higher voice answers. She doesn't know how, maybe it's instinct or maybe it's love, but she knows that's _him_.

"Did not!" the older boy defends. He's clearly offended, perhaps by the disparagement to his ego, or perhaps simply because he's being challenged by his servant. "You're the one who screamed like a girl."

"The Lurian Defense Corps screams as part of their battle cry and they're _all_ girls," he points out the flaw in the young prince's logic. "So I'll take that as a compliment," he finishes smugly. Heart swelling to twice its size, she can't stop the grin that spreads across her face.

Apparently, the young blonde prince has no ammunition with which to lob a return volley and therefore can only reply with a hearty, "Harrumph!" Kara can practically see him crossing his arms in frustrated defeat.

Following the direction of their voices, she peers over the stair railing and sees two pairs of eyes of staring back up at her from the level below. They must have run away and then, having realized they weren't being chased by a ghostly figure, turned back, daring each other to confront the mysterious woman in white who appeared from nowhere. They stand as though paralyzed again, their heads tilted back, their jaws open as though unhinged. Choosing not to waste the opportunity presented to her, she races down the steps hoping to gain on them before they can take off once more.

Making it to the landing halfway to the next floor, Kara then vaults over the stair rail, surprised by how heavy and unwieldy her body feels as she goes over. Her feet spread between two different steps when she lands, her sweaty palm (sweaty?) loses its grip on the rail, leaving her no way to keep her momentum from sending her ass over tea kettle down the stairs. She hasn't far to tumble, however, with two ten-year-old boys to cushion her fall at the bottom of the stairs.

Well…that's one way to catch them.

Hardly bothering to assess injuries to her own body (Alex warned her it would be possible), Kara scrambles to make sure Mon-El is all right. "Are you okay?" she frets, as the boys work to gain their feet once more. Ostensibly unfazed by the fall and the fact that a mysterious woman twice his size landed on top of him, he scrambles away from her. Even as she clambers to her knees, grabbing at his arm to keep him from escaping while she recovers. Running a hand over his head looking for bumps or gashes, she quizzes, "Did you hit your head?" Finding no obvious protuberances, she holds up two fingers, "How many fingers?"

His bond-brother recovers from the fall and rushes to his rescue, as usual. Boldly, showing not an ounce of fear, Morgon grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him away from the strange woman's reach, before placing his body between the two. His green eyes, squint like a snake preparing to strike, bore into her wide blue ones, "You do not touch the prince without his permission," Morgon announces in a voice that carries far more authority than his age might suggest.

Part of Mon-El cringes inside at Morgon's admission. Reminders that he is the Prince of Daxam usually fill him with a sense of pride, but for reasons he doesn't understand, this time it does not. For reasons he can't justify, he awaits her reaction to this news, studiously observing the expressions on her face. She seems so easy to read, not at all secretive, or skilled in the art of dissembling. Confused by how he knows this truth, Mon-El is certain her reaction will be honest and undistorted.

Unaware that her reaction is being carefully examined by curious and puzzled slate-gray eyes, she attempts to explain. "I only wanted to check—wait..." her breath catches in her chest, the air around them stilling like the eerie calm before a storm. "What did you say?" she asks, her voice shockingly dull and lifeless to her own ears.

Struck by the crinkle between her eyebrows, like a flash of something intimately familiar, Mon-El struggles for recognition – to remember where he's seen this woman before. As he surely must have. Filling with a sense of dread unlike any he's felt in his young life, even during those times when he must face his father's wrath, Mon-El steps behind Morgon's protective bulk.

Morgon performs his signature eye roll, his lips twisting smugly. "I said…you do not touch the prince without his permission." Turning his head to speak to Mon-El, who has managed to wedge himself behind his protector, his earlier courage having evaporated. "See?" Morgan crows, his tone heavy with the note of announcement. "I told you she was no remnant."

" _I_ told _you_ ," Mon-El insists, finding a shred of bravery. The pair proceed to argue their points back and forth, their own egos allowing them to forget her presence for a moment.

Shaken by the boy's revelation of Mon-El's true identity, Kara struggles to normalize her breathing. Prince? She can't take her eyes off him; so young and scrawny, his beautiful face is pale, but his cheeks are a bright pink from exertion or embarrassment, she doesn't know which. Unburdened by crow's feet, his warm gray eyes are as round as silver medallions.

He is the Prince of Daxam? Not the bodyguard…but the prince. Rolling the thought over and over in her mind, she has extraordinary difficulty grasping hold of it, like a dropped paper caught on a breeze, that's whisked out of reach just as she lunges for it. "You're the prince," she says aloud, finally seizing that floating paper like it's making plans to escape. "You're the Prince of Daxam," she repeats, her voice gathering in strength.

A lump rising in her throat makes it difficult to swallow as tears gather in her eyes. Why hadn't he told her? Moments flash before her mind like a montage video of jibes she'd taken at the Crown Prince of Daxam, ones she's made offhand and the others thrown straight in Mon-El's face.

Truthfully, she doesn't know what to feel, can't choose between the anger that wells at learning he hadn't trusted her enough to reveal his secret, and heartbroken because she knows _why_ he hadn't. Right from the beginning, in the earliest days of their acquaintance, before an attraction even had a chance to grow between them, she and her team at the DEO had backed him into a corner and put him on the defensive.

After an attempt on the life of President Marsdin, they had assumed that he, a John Doe at the time, had crash landed on Earth, feigned a coma until just the right time, and then managed to escape the DEO for the express purposes of killing a well-protected head of state. It is ridiculous to even contemplate in retrospect, but she'd been so blinded by her prejudice toward Daxam that logic hadn't been high on her priority list. Was it any wonder he pretended to be someone he wasn't? He must have put those hours spent in his cell to good use inventing his backstory. Likely keeping it just close enough to the truth to serve his purpose.

It was pretty savvy of him, truth be told. Not sure he could trust the people who just accused him, quite vigorously, of attempting to assassinate the president, he made the smart decision to hold back his true identity. Discovering he was a prince could have put him in an even more tenuous situation, after all. What if the DEO decided to use him against his will? Hold him hostage? Torture him for intelligence on Daxam's military preparedness? Hold him for ransom?

Undoubtedly, these are things about which princes are taught to be concerned. He didn't, after all, know them from Adam and so he did what any savvy, principle target would have done…downplayed his own importance until he could better ascertain his situation and the people with whom he'd been saddled. It must not have helped their case, hers in particular, when she immediately began expressing her negative views on Daxam and its royal family, after ostensibly calling a truce with him.

If she correctly recalls, the Prince of Daxam had been the _'_ Frat boy of the universe' and the 'worst of the worst'. Making her disdain for him perfectly clear, what choice had he had back then, but to crawl into his shell like a turtle and to throw himself into the notion that he was someone else?

"So…this is who you were," she says, interrupting their ongoing squabble. When their heads turn back to her, she catches a flash of recognition in the steel of his gray eyes. He's in there, she sees. Her Mon-El, though buried deep, is not lost to her forever.

As carefully as he studies her reaction to the discovery of his identity, still he dreads seeing the emotions that cross her face. She cycles quickly from disbelief to acceptance, and myriad milestones between, as quickly as the varied colors of strobe lights strike the exultant faces of the concubines at one of his father's parties. The expression on her face lands squarely on resignation, a swirl of acceptance and disappointment in equal measure. Mon-El's heart tumbles into the pit of his gut, which then feels like it's taken a punch that's landed solidly in its center. Not at all like the punches that Morgon pulls when they scuffle together.

He doesn't know what reaction he wished for from this strangely familiar woman, but it is somehow more than he expected, but less than he'd hoped. Looking around, Mon-El takes in his surroundings; the richness of the deep green carpet runner, dyed that uncommon color using the petals of the rare and endangered dophelim flower. Ancient tapestries on the wall telling the story of his families rise to power, painstakingly woven centuries ago and maintained with pride. Beneath his feet are tiles made from the blood red clay of Daxam's quarries, swirled with the rare dust of gold found in the veins of the caves carved into the mountains of Gylar's Peak.

This is who is he is, whether this woman with her striking blue eyes likes it or not. This is the place of his birth; this is what made him and no matter how badly much of it shames him. He is struck by a sudden sense of weariness, as if he had been concealing this truth for a long time, and now finds he can no longer bear the weight of hiding it.

The warmth in his gray eyes chills and the openness, that part of him that wedged its way into her heart, shuts down. His jaw tightens, an odd action to see on the face of a child, and his arms cross defiantly. "That's right," he replies, the challenge in his voice clear, "This is who I _am_. What have you to say about that?"

"She shouldn't be saying anything," Morgon interjects. Then he points an accusatory finger at her, "Look!"

Glancing down, in the direction of the blond boy's pointed finger, she sees what they're just now noticing. Her hand raises to her chest in a protective motion. When she looks back up, the situation has changed drastically. Instead of two young boys standing before, their false bravado on display, there are now two young men, around fifteen years of age by her estimation. Instead of childhood bluster, their teenage arrogance is a palpable presence.

"Kryptonian," the blonde teenager announces in a voice now deepened from puberty. In Kara's experience, there's a thin line between excitement and bloodlust and from the gleam in his eyes, she is unable to discern whether he's angry or awed. Mon-El's expression, on the other hand, is clearly one of puzzlement. Unlike his childhood persona, which bore just a hint of his adult countenance, she can now see her mate in the face before her, though still painfully, artlessly young.

No longer is he a boy, but neither is he a man if the deep hollows of his cheeks, still emerging jaw and overly prominent bulge of his Adam's apple are any indication. Not to mention the rash of acne at his hairline that almost coaxes a smile to her face. He looks wiry, without any of the broad musculature with which she is familiar—with which she is intimate.

"House of El," Mon-El concurs, his voice also deepened, though still slightly unsure when compared to his bond-brother's. "She must be a relative of the Emissary," he says, even though a twisting in his gut tells him that's not right. His mind reaches for a remembrance of her somewhere he might have caught sight of her, a gathering of state or an official function of the king's, but instead all he sees is a flash of a smile, a laugh…a kiss? As it always does at the most inconvenient times, his body reacts to the images.

It shouldn't surprise her that this version of him knows the meaning of the glyph on her chest, but it does. Obviously, in his mind, he's very aware of her heritage. Nodding her head, Kara recalls that an El had been the Emissary to Daxam since the fall of the House of Ur on Krypton, her mind grasping to recount her family history. If her calculations are correct, this would have been…four years before her birth, making her great uncle Zem the emissary at this time. She's tempted to play it off, to claim kinship to her great-uncle in hopes that it will gain some credibility, but that leads her—leads them both—in the opposite direction that they need to go. After deciding his course of treatment without consulting him, a betrayal she regrets beyond words, she is already on thin ice with him, she is certain. Using the truth to appeal to the grown man inside the defiant boy, is her best bet, she decides – even if it places her in danger.

"Mon-El…listen to me…none of this is real. This is all in your head," she pleads, opting for brute force instead of subtlety. "Look at me. You _know_ me, Mon-El. I'm your mate."

Several things about the woman's speech give him pause. The first is the realization that his familiar name falls from her mouth with a sense of familiarity that can only be described as intimate. She doesn't use the official name used by the populace or the heads of the noble bloodlines of Daxam or provided to the emissaries and other intergalactic statesmen that move in and out of the Court of Vir Gand. This woman knows his true name, the one his father calls him, his voice always tinged with disdain; the same name his bond-brother calls him when it's just them and there are no titles to separate them. It's the name he both cherishes and dreads, and the woman with familiar lips and bright blue eyes uses it like it's a lifeline and she is drowning in the crimson sea of the Vertolt Drift.

His second thought is her ridiculous assertion that she is his mate. For him, latching won't take place until he's much older. When it's politically expedient for his father, he'll be given a bride of high rank with impeccable blood lines, just as tradition dictates. Mon-El doesn't know who the person will be, but he knows with ironclad certainty that she won't be a Kryptonian. No matter how attractive he finds the woman still on her knees before him, such an alliance would serve little purpose but to draw the two planets closer to war than they already are. Their planets are still recovering from the last time such a marriage occurred. Her assertion is ludicrous beyond measure.

Mon-El and the older teen share a look, their eyes holding for a moment, before they dissolve simultaneously into a fit of raucous laughter that has her blushing with embarrassment. It's at this precise moment that she realizes the identity of this blonde boy, with his cherubic face and forest green eyes. "You're Ral," she breathes.

"How do you know my name?" His laughter stops abruptly, the smile melting from his face, Ral takes a step back, unafraid despite his youth.

"Because Mon-El told me," she replies, her eyes glued to Mon-El. "You told me that he was your step-brother. That his mother married your father when he was seven and you were six. That he was the only thing you truly missed about Daxam." Tears gather in her eyes at the thought of forcing a reminder of what his mind clearly wants to forget. "You told me of how he died on the day that Daxam was destroyed."

Mon-El scoffs at her story as if it is a fantasy—because it must be—but Morgon, moved by the genuine sadness in her voice, isn't so sure. Mon-El, unwilling to hear tales of his bond-brother's inconvenient demise, points at the tears welling in her eyes. "She has the hydration-sickness, Morgon!" Mon-El deduces. "Clearly, she's consumed too much water despite the Crown's warnings, and gone mad with it. We should have her ejected from the palace by the guards."

"That's ridiculous," Kara begins, wiping at the single wet streak on her cheek that may provide evidence to the contrary. "Drinking water doesn't make people crazy."

"Now she speaks treason," Mon-El insists, his spine straightening. "I will fetch a guard and order that she be taken to a cell," his hands ball into fists as though he's itching to strike her across the face.

Picturing what happens in the cells below the palace, what the King does to prisoners down there, Morgon's heart clenches in his chest and he's filled with inexplicable need to protect this woman from those horrors. "No!" he replies aggressively, placing a calming hand on Mon-El's arm.

"Morgon?!" Mon-El growls, unhappy with Morgon's interruption.

"Have a servant escort her down to the kitchens instead," Morgon suggests, softly, his tone bordering on conspiratorial. "They can ply her with dunberry wine. That should be mild enough for one who's overhydrated. Perhaps her…madness…will lessen once she's had something proper to drink."

Mon-El calls out for a servant, taking for granted that one will respond with due haste. While they wait, Kara makes one last attempt to reach him. "You know I'm telling the truth," she rushes. "You can feel it and I can see that in your eyes. Daxam is gone and this is all in your head, Mon-El. You need to come home," she pleads. Before she can finish, a strong arm, that of a well-honed servant-slave is lifting her to her feet and dragging her away from him. "If you stay here, you'll die," she calls over her shoulder, "…and so will I…because I'm not leaving here without you."

As the top of her head disappears down the stairs, Morgon feels a sense of despair unlike anything he's ever experienced, not since the death of his own father. Why does he feel this way? She was just a crazy woman who drank excessive amounts of water, unaware that its madness had seeped in, causing her to experience delusions and visions of an impossible future.

"She's just a lunatic, Morgon," Mon-El reminds him, though it seems he speaks more to remind himself. Watching the strange woman being dragged away, he feels a twinge of something...soft inside, which he immediately shuts down before it can spread. Morgon is soft enough for the both of them. Still, he can't help but feel like he's forgotten something that should be burned indelibly into his memory.

"But…there's something…."

"Forget about her," Mon-El urges, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "She'll be served wine in the kitchens, and then be escorted back to Kryptonian Embassy…where hopefully they can do a better job of taking care of their own. It's not as if they don't understand our laws."

"But they aren't bound to follow them. They have a strange aversion to imbibing fermented drinks."

"I don't think it's the fermentation that bothers them," Mon-El points out, with a chuckle, their relationship shifting back to normal. "I think it's the spontaneity that follows. I've never met a Kryptonian that wasn't in dire need of an Alverian colonic."

Morgon snorts a laugh, amused at the visual created by his bond-brother's joke. "That will remove the steel from anyone's spine," he nods, scratching at the beginnings of a beard he is attempting to grow with little success.

"That my thinking," Mon-El grins. Slapping Morgon on the back, he draws his mind away from the sick woman who was just escorted away. "Speaking of aggressive sexual positions…we're running late for training with the Adepts."

"Yes," Morgon replies, his eyes lighting up with excitement. "We wouldn't want to leave them waiting."

"Or wanting," Mon-El adds with dancing eyebrows, his grey eyes twinkling to match his brother's. "Lead the way."

Morgon slips his arm around Mon-El's shoulders, leading his bond-brother in the opposite direction of the stairwell, glancing back one more time before leading the prince away. Her illness explains the tears that welled in her eyes, and even the delusional belief that Daxam is on a path to destruction. But it does not explain how she knows the prince's true name…or his own. Unless her story is somehow true.

"Come along, Brother," Mon-El urges. "When the Adepts get their hands on you, you'll forget all about that Kryptonian crazy woman."

"Right," Morgon answers, still distracted by thoughts of her lips and those bright blue eyes looking up at him with such hope. "Right. I'll put myself in the hands of the Adepts."

"There's the bond-brother I know and love."


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngrl7

Rating: Explicit

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: Please beware of warnings. This is story include a lot of kinks that some might consider offensive. If you're a sexual conservative this story is not for you. If you're not into heterosexual sex this is really not the story for you. This story includes the following: dom/sub, public sex, fellatio of several varieties, exhibitionism kink, voyeurism kink, sex toys, master/slave, threesome, binding and harnessing, collars, and that's just the tip of the iceberg so if any of the previous mentions bothers you then stay away.

Chapter 5/?

 _And I'll rip these walls apart_

 _And I went and shot an arrow right through your heart_

 _But how those times have changed_

 _'Cause now you don't remember my name_

 _I'm sorry that I'm here so late_

 _And please don't turn my heart away_

 _For your love, I can change,_

 _'Cause without you, I'm so hollow_

 _\- "Bitter Pill" - Gavin James_

Nothing feels right when he is with the Adept. She removes her robes, allowing the sheer, silky material to slither down her hourglass figure until it settles on the floor, and all he can think is that her breasts are overly large and her areolae not the dusky pink he prefers.

His body reacts, his cock hardening to half-mast as usual, but his shaft seems unwilling to commit to more based on the temptation provided. So, he throws himself into the lesson in hopes of erasing the memory of those blue eyes and perfect pink lips from his rebellious mind.

As Madame Fortis, Priestess to the Inner Sanctum of Lure, instructs him, Mon-El guides the Adept until she's lying on the bed, her thighs spread open before him, as if she is a banquet to be consumed to his heart's content. Flashes of memory assault him the moment he dives into the Adept's plump lips, slipping his tongue into her seam to taste her. That's not right either, he recognizes right away. Fortis instructs him to listen to her body, not her words or the primitive sounds emerging from within. It is only the body that speaks truth.

Kara's body always spoke truth, he tells himself, because it didn't know how not to. Kara's skin is satin to touch and her sweet juices taste like salted caramel, instead of the overly ripe wedges of randelfruit, with its addictive but still slightly acidic tang.

Kara? How does he know her name is Kara?

Unexpectedly, his mind is flooded with images and memories of her that have him reeling backwards.

 _"_ _I didn't come here to hurt anyone!"_ His own voice, older and deeper fills his head. He scrambles away from the Adept, falling off the edge of the bed and landing painfully on his hip. Why does it hurt so much? It isn't supposed to hurt anymore.

 _"_ _Good, because you never will."_

 _"_ _My name is Kara Zor-El, I'm from Krypton and like you…I'm a refugee on this planet."_

 _"_ _You look absolutely beautiful with the weight of all these worlds on your shoulders…."_

 _"_ _Are we going to talk about what happened…between us?"_

 _"_ _What if we called it…a favor between friends?"_

 _"_ _You are stunning when you take your pleasure, Kara."_

 _"_ _So good…feels so good."_

 _"_ _I'll be fine. Probably sooner than you think. Benefits of a yellow sun."_

 _"_ _I want you again. Is that wrong?"_

 _"_ _I'll make a Daxamite of you yet."_

 _"_ _I'd like that. It's a date!"_

 _"_ _See you there…Sunshine."_

The flashes continue, layered over the sounds of Madame Fortis and the Adept hovering around him. "Are you unwell, my prince?" he hears Fortis's velvet voice, laced with worry. Mon-El presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, in hopes that he can halt the breathless rush of images that turn his body into a raging fire against his will.

"My prince, let me help you," the Adept, offers, wrapping her fingers around his stiff cock.

"Leave me!" he shouts, pushing her away from him. Searing pain lances through his skull, and he can't be bothered with pleasuring or being pleasured at the moment.

Leaping back, the Adept runs out of the room while Madam Fortis continues to hover above him. "Shall I call for the Physician Eminent, Your Highness?"

"No," he swallows, shaking his head. "It's just a headache. It will pass."

Without opening his eyes, his ears pick up the sound of liquid pouring into a goblet. A moment later the cool goblet is being placed into his hand, Madame Fortis doing all the work of wrapping his fingers around the etched glass. "Perhaps this will ease your discomfort."

"My thanks," he acknowledges before taking a large gulp, the sweet restorative sliding down his throat. "I'd like to be alone."

"As you wish," Fortis replies, bowing in a deep curtsy.

Mon-El hears the swish of the voluminous layers of her gown as she departs the room and he breathes a sigh of relief. But the relief of being left alone doesn't stop the memories from entering his mind, filling in blank spots he hadn't even known were there.

 _"_ _Dollars. We call units dollars here in America…"_

 _"_ _I told them you were a secret superhero…."_

 _"_ _I occasionally talk to myself when I need to work things out in my head!"_

 _"_ _If I want to be a man worthy of you…I need to start acting like it."_

 _"_ _Don't tell me you don't feel it too. It's so powerful…it's in my skin."_

 _"_ _He sent you to me. He sent you_ _ **for**_ _me."_

 _"_ _I'm yours…and you're mine."_

 _"_ _Say it again."_

 _"_ _I'm yours, Mon-El of Daxam. And you're mine. And don't you ever forget it…."_

 _"_ _I can think of worse ways to die…"_

 _"_ _I don't like that joke. No more jokes about you dying…"_

 _"_ _I like it when you spank my ass..."_

 _"_ _Good girl. And good girls should get everything their little heart's desire."_ Her words were followed by the unmistakable sound of a palm slapping against skin _._

"God's of Val-Or," Mon-El groans. His body reacts to these memories with more power and vigor than he's ever experienced with one of the Adepts or the most beautiful of Father's concubines that he fantasized about before he began his lessons in the art of giving and receiving pleasure. Spreading his legs out in front of him, Mon-El grasps his cock, squeezing and pumping the appendage with excruciatingly pleasurable brutality. "Kara!" he moans, gasping as beads of sweat roll down his face from his forehead.

It all comes back like a flood, but in fits and starts, as he remembers the other world—the world where she was his and he had everything he wanted, a promise of a future he never could have imagined here. Until it was taken away from him.

 _"_ _Is this what you want?"_ he remembers, pumping his cock into his hand instead of the wet heat of her sheath.

 _"_ _More," her voice begs._

 _"_ _You want to be in control? Is that what you want? Maybe I should sit in the chair and just let you ride me."_

 _"_ _No! No, baby, please?"_

The mere recollection of her voice is enough to have him exploding into his own hand. Grabbing for his shirt, he cleans up his mess and climbs to his feet on shaky legs. As always, new clothes await him in the bathing chamber once he's wiped his body down with a wet washcloth. Mon-El shoves down the shame that threatens to swamp him when he thinks about his earlier action. Self-pleasure is considered an act of selfishness on Daxam. He could have easily used an Adept to meet his needs, and given her pleasure at the same time.

But the very idea made him uncomfortable…and a little afraid. Kara would kill him. His Kara. His mate.

Kara.

She is here…in the palace? It makes no sense, and he can't force it to make sense. What had she said? That none of this is real? Frantically, he realizes that he needs to find Kara. She's in the palace, in a place that's none too friendly to Kryptonians, and he had abandoned her to that fate. Reaching for his pants, he struggles with finding the open pant leg. He needs to find Kara and he needs to find her now, before these memories slip away, as he somehow knows they will – suspects they have before.

Between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, Kara Danvers had honed the skill of hiding in plain sight. Nursing her third glass of (delicious) dunberry wine, she plots her escape in hopes of getting back to Mon-El, a large portion of her plan relying on her ability to sneak away unseen. But by the time she empties her third glass, her head is floaty and she wonders if she can't fly again, even in this dream world.

Slumped over in her chair at a table in the corner of the kitchen, she becomes quiet as a church mouse and slowly the servants forget her presence and return to the attendance of their tasks. When the activity in the kitchen reaches a fever pitch, as apparently the noon meal approaches, Kara slides out of her chair and slips out the door into the hallway.

Feeling like a sore thumb in her white Kryptonian travel ensemble, it occurs to Kara that she might get farther in her mission if she could locate an outfit that is a tad less distinctive and a bit more discreet. No sooner does her mind complete the thought than her white garments are replaced, like a swipe of new pixels, by the terracotta orange uniform of a palace servant.

Stunned by the wish fulfillment, Kara finds a mirror in the corridor and examines the new outfit carefully, noting the brown cuffs beneath the elbows of her three-quarters sleeves, and the flat brass buttons on the outside of the cuffs. Like a wrap blouse, one string laces through the side panel of the shirt, until the strings meet and tie in the back. Her chocolate brown trousers, made of a soft linen-like material, feel like yoga pants against her skin – and like yoga pants, the legs flare out, practically hiding the comfortable slippers on her feet.

On her head she wears a turban-like headpiece the color of her wrap blouse, with the bulk of her hair, braided into several strands emerging from the top of the swathed bundle. Determining it unwise to be caught studying oneself in the mirror, she assumes a demure position, lowering her head and clasping her hand together in front of her. Her invisibility training comes in handy once more as she passes by several people of noble birth, judging by their jewelry and the bright colors of their clothing, without any of them taking notice.

Kara wonders if she should alter her attire to something more noble, debating internally about which will keep her safer, should any of these NPCs decide to turn on her for making the wrong move. Alex had been very clear that this could happen, even though only Mon-El had turned on her during this little adventure. But it seems a life as a third-class citizen is the smart choice when wanting to go unwitnessed – at least, so far.

When, out of nowhere, the sudden flash of memories brings her to knees and no one comes to her aid, Kara realizes just how invisible she is to Mon-El's mind at the moment. Instinctively, despite the pain slicing though her skull, she understands that these are his memories, because she's seeing them from his perspective— _feeling_ them from his perspective—and not her own.

Something has triggered him to remember her, remember them, and it's all coming back to him in a painful, overwhelming rush. When the rush trickles to a stop at last, she has a few moments to breathe. As she recovers on her knees, she pretends to search the tiled floor for something she might have dropped, thereby drawing even less notice from passersby, both servant and noble alike.

She overhears one servant pouting that the prince is rumored to be feeling under the weather and that an Adept was asked to depart his pleasure chamber. The green dragon of jealousy rears its ugly head and Kara is torn between confronting him and giving her hurt full rein.

Unfortunately, she's yet to make her decision when her surroundings melt into something new, swiping away just like her clothing did earlier, until she's on her knees in front of Mon-El. Again.

One leg is halfway into his trousers when he sees her there. Startled, he jumps back, smacking his rear end into the counter, causing the washroom bowl to jostle and tip over the edge. At once, both reach for the hand-carved stone bowl, catching it together just before it smashes into the ground.

"That was close," she states, proud of having saved the day despite a lack of super speed.

"What are you…how did you get here?" he asks, setting the bowl gently back in its place on the counter.

"I'm not sure. I'm still figuring all of this out," she confesses, climbing to her feet. "I can only imagine that you wanted me here, and so…here I am."

"I was having…memories," he tells her, still somewhat uncomfortable in her presence. Reaching for his pants again, he slips quickly into them, tying the laces at the waist. The material is soft, with an iridescent sheen common to the clothing of the noble houses.

"I think I had them, too," she nods. "Or at least…I saw memories from your perspective."

"It's like having a veil removed from my eyes…painfully. I'm half one person and half another. I belong here, but I belong there too." Mon-El presses his fingers against his forehead. "I don't understand anything of this."

"No…you belong there. None of this is real, Mon-El," she says gently. "You're unconscious on a bed in the DEO."

"You mean I'm not dead?" he asks, dumbly. It's all a whirl to him. For the longest time, he was certain he was dead, and this was Nerg-tyr.

"No, of course not!" Kara replies, horrified. Is that what he's believed? How bad is it in the subconscious of his own mind that he would believe he is in the Daxam version of Hell? "Do you remember the DEO?"

He nods, "I think so. What happened? Was I injured?" He lowers his head trying to remember. "No that doesn't sound right," he says before she can answer.

"There was an incident," she explains, wringing her hands together. "You weren't well…you were seeing things…and I wanted to help you, but I went about it all wrong."

Together they experience a flash of memory, the feel of cuffs slapping across his wrists. "You wanted to lock me up," he surmises from the small, but vivid snippets. Feelings of hurt and rage spring up in his chest, and he turns to exit the washroom. Fighting the part of him that wants to shut out these uncomfortable emotions and go back the dull blade he'd made of himself before these memories, Mon-El is overtaken by the need to pace

"I'm sorry," she apologizes, following him out of the washroom. "I'm so sorry. I was wrong. Making that decision without talking to you first was…a betrayal. I see that now. I only hope you can forgive me."

As if the weight of this conversation deserves more than a teenager's voice, when he turns to face her, he's changed again – older this time – near the age he must have been when first they met. But different still, there's a neatly groomed beard on his face, and his body seems slightly bulkier than she remembers, as if thirty years in The Well of Stars caused his muscles to atrophy. Perhaps unnoticeable to him because he emerged from his stasis coma with super strength, but easily recognizable to someone with intimate, and appreciative, knowledge of his anatomy. And she is definitely appreciative of the new changes.

"You treated me like a criminal," he accuses, his voice still deeper, running a hand through his hair as his feet move swiftly across the thick hand-woven rug.

"That wasn't our—my—intention," she excuses.

He swipes a candlestick from atop a chest of drawers and Kara flinches as if he might throw it at her. Mon-El doesn't notice the sudden wariness in her stance, like she's preparing to dive out of the path of the heavy flying object. Instead of throwing it, however, he merely holds it, gripping it tightly while lifting it up and down, as though he is at the gym and the candlestick is a barbell. "How is this not real?" he asks, for the moment distracted from his hurt and anger. "I can feel its weight, the coolness of the metal against its skin…?"

"It feels real because…it was real once and your mind remembers how it felt. And for the rest…your mind extrapolates based on existing memories and knowledge. We're very…imaginative."

"So, you're a figment of my imagination too then? I mean…you said I was seeing things…out there. How do I know I'm not seeing things now…in here?"

"I promise you, I'm real," Kara replies.

Mon-El sets down the candlestick and reaches for here, grabbing her upper arms and testing their firmness, half-believing that his hands will pass right through her. When they don't, he asks, "If this is in my head and you're real, then how did you get here?"

"Last year I was attacked by a Black Mercy. Do you know what that is?"

Mon-El nods. "It's a parasite that keeps its host in a dream state while it feeds from them. If the host is unable to wake up, they will eventually die."

"Maxwell Lord retrofitted a virtual reality helmet so that Alex could interface with me in the dream state. I'm using that same neural interface now to enter your dream state. Winn and Cisco upgraded the software to include an exit portal I can control. All I need is for you to go through the door with me and we can wake—"

Just then, the bedroom door opens and in glides a woman dressed in nothing more than a completely transparent negligee that drapes all the way to the floor. Kara only has a moment to wonder why the woman bothers to wear anything at all. Her voluminous waist-length black hair spills down the front of the sheer gown, strategically covering her breasts. Each upper arm sports a golden cuff about three inches wide, an emblem etched into it that designates her as a sex worker.

"Are you quite well, my Prince? Shall we continue with the lesson?"

Unbidden, the desire to leap across the room like a feral jaguar and tear the woman's throat out rises within her, but she tightens her jaw and twists her fingers until the resulting pain redirects her thoughts.

At the reminder of his title, in Kara's presence no less, Mon-El flinches, his heart sinking into the depths of his gut until he feels as though he might vomit. Earlier, before his memories of the outside had surfaced, when she was just a hauntingly familiar face, he had been so arrogant about revealing his title. Announcing himself the Prince of Daxam as if it held some real meaning – perhaps because in those days it had. But since then he had morphed into a man, and that title had a very different meaning now. It was a shackle, no different than a chain clapped on a slave.

So focused on him and reading his emotions, Kara hadn't taken a moment to get her bearings when exiting the washroom. Now, for the first time, she glances about, absorbing the sight of everything around her. The massive mattress centered on a raised platform, its satin sheets ruffled as though recent use of the bed had been both vigorous and performed with great relish. Mirrors adorn the ceiling above the bed, as well as portions of the walls around and behind it. On one wall, there is row after row of implements designed to provide pleasure and pain, the purposes of which Kara can reliably identify perhaps a quarter of them and on another wall stands an armoire made of mirrors. Above her own head, weight-bearing hooks are screwed into the ceiling, where she imagines a swing of some kind often hangs. Stowed in the back of the room is an X-shaped cross with shackles dangling from each end, as well as several leather-topped benches and odd-shaped chairs. Despite the bed, and other furniture, this is not a bedroom, she realizes; it's far too large for that, too impersonal, with its grey stone floors and threadbare rugs scattered about to warm up the place. More like a dance or athletic studio than a quiet hideaway most people would prefer for a boudoir, even a prince.

"This is a sex room," she concludes aloud. The velveteen bedspread over white satin sheets is a silver grey, a color she finds tasteful for a sex room, if such things are possible.

"Leave us," he tells the scantily clad woman, who disappears so quickly, Kara wonders if she simply winked out of existence because he wished it so. "It's called a chancel but…yes, this is a sex room, Kara. This is where I learn… _learned_ …the ways of the pleasure arts. For most of my young adulthood, I came here nearly every day for lessons with Madame Fortis and…whatever Adept was offered to me. Sometimes more than one," he adds. "Sometimes the Adept was a male."

Kara's eyes widen with shock, and she sucks on her lower lip in an attempt to disguise her surprise. "You had sex with men?"

"With men, with women…with the occasional Eldaraan," he blurts out. "They're hermaphroditic, you know. Makes things _quite_ interesting." Mon-El observes her face carefully; searching for the sign of disgust he knows will come eventually.

Something inside of him, the dike he crudely patches every time it springs a leak and threatens to reveal the entirety of his past, crumbles to dust and floods him with despair. He's ready for this to end, this dangling on tenterhooks that he's mastered since beginning this doomed relationship with her. At first, he thought he could get away with it, keeping all his secrets, starting a new life, but now he knows she will never be his; not once she knows the whole truth. He hardens inside, in his gut and in his heart, because the only other option is to shatter, and he's broken enough already. "Then there were the orgies."

"Stop," she says waving her hand.

"Reach your limit, Princess?"

"Why are you pretending like I don't know you're from Daxam?" she asks, a tinge of mocking in her tone. "You think any of this," she indicates the room and its accoutrements, "changes things between us?"

"Can you really be so naïve, Kara?" Mon-El spits angrily. "Can you really be this foolish? You think you can look at a sex room, learn that I grew up in a palace catered to by slaves and servants and think you know everything about me? About who I am? About what makes me…me?" His fingers curl into fists, his biceps and pectorals twitching beneath his skin, and Kara watches as he hardens right before her eyes, as though he's forcing everything they've shared to fossilize into a memory he plans to bury deep. "Your eternal optimism can't fix this…fix me. It can't make me into something I'm not. Your hope means nothing here. You should go through the door and forget about me."

"Forget about you?" she echoes, stymied by his unwillingness to return with her. "Forget about the life we were building together? About the plans we made? I should forget about the life I thought we both wanted? The life you _swore_ you wanted."

Something about her words, and the desperation with which she wields them, brings on another flash that has them both grasping painfully for their temples, as though they are mirror images of each other. It's like shoehorning a book onto a too-full shelf, this onslaught of memories that feels both intimate and distant at the same time. As the pain fades, Mon-El tastes the acrid bitterness of uneasiness in the back of his throat before he seeks the answer upon which his whole world turns. "Are you pregnant?"

To lie would be so easy, a simple nod of the head, maybe brush her hand over the flat of her stomach to really sell it. She will have him then; take his hand and trigger the door that will take them both home. Only to dig herself further into the arrears of his trust – a hole she's already unintentionally dug for herself once. She'll be damned if she does it a second time on purpose – she couldn't bear those consequences.

"Don't lie," he whispers, observing the conflict warring in her blue eyes.

Kara shakes her head, feeling the grief anew, fresh and sharp like a razor. "No."

"Good," he replies, decisively. "You're better off not being tied to someone like me. What was it you called me again?" he asks, no amount of faked bravado able to cover the sadness in his voice. "The 'worst of the worst'?" he quotes.

"That's not fair! All I had was the gossip and second-hand stories," she protests, tears slipping down her reddened cheeks. "I didn't know you then."

"Oh, Kara," he sighs, his voice rich with defeat. "You never have. The gossip was too kind."

"Show me then," she challenges, straightening her spine, arms akimbo in her Supergirl stance. "If you think I'm so much better off…then show me." He's slipping away from her, constructing walls to divide them and she can see them just as if they are constructed of brick and mortar. In a last desperate bid to reach beyond the wall, Kara grabs his face and plants a kiss on his lips. Her thumbs caress his cheeks as she dives deeper into the kiss. "Show me," she proposes again, this time a demand, against his lips before slipping her tongue inside.

It's a kiss as real as any in the flesh, which is why he lacks the fortitude to push her away. The part of him that knows this can never end well; that one day, perhaps today, she will look at him with disgust in her eyes, cries out to escape her assertive lips and grasping hands. He sinks into the assault of her mouth and tongue, promising himself that it's just one last kiss before letting her go. He wraps his arms around her waist, taking her flush against his body. His arms need one last chance to hold her…before he forgets why he wants to.

Like a spark set to accelerant and kindling, his demurrals go up in flames as he takes over the kiss, his hands diving into her hair – suddenly and magically freed from the headpiece common to palace servants. Threads of silk tickle the sensitive skin where his fingers meet between their top knuckles. Fisting them together, he grips at her hair, yanking back her head as he dives deeper into the kiss, committing her mouth to memory, in a desperate hope that, in whatever time remains in this hellish world of a half-life, he might find a way to replay it over and over again.

Only in the deepest recesses does he wish her naked, but no sooner does the fleeting thought occur to him, then her clothing disappears as though de-pixilated from his conscious mind. Her breasts against his chest now, his hands skim the surface of her back, covering as much territory as he can, spreading his fingers wide for maximum contact. On instinct, one hand slides down her back, curving and dipping until it finds a single, lush globe of her rear end. Gripping it tightly, he presses her pubis against his still flaccid cock which presents him with an idea. An idea with a rapidly closing window.

Tearing away from the kiss, breathing heavily, he leans his forehead against hers. "You wish for me to show you?"

"Yes," she replies, her own breath coming fast and hard, the taste of him still on her lips.

To her disappointment, Mon-El releases her and steps away, leaving her bereft of his heat. He looks her up and down, devouring her with his eyes before turning around and walking over to the peg wall draped with implements for both pleasure and pain. For a moment, he studies the wall, his back turned to her, as he considers her request. Considers how he can get his impossibly stubborn mate to leave him…forever. For her own good.

"Mon-El?" she asks after a too-long moment of silence passes between them.

"Are you sure about this?" he queries, his mind forming what he hopes is a viable plan for her to leave this place and forget about him. He will show her the worst parts of himself, everything that Father made of him. He will show her the depths of Daxam's depravity, as much of it as he can stomach himself, until she runs screaming and thanking her precious Rao for showing her the escape route.

Kara's eyes scan the peg wall of sensual apparatuses with unveiled interest. No longer the same prudish girl she was when he blazed into her life, she's not afraid to admit—at least to him—that her naked body thrills at the idea of testing out some of these toys. Not afraid to admit she hopes that's where his question leads. "Yes," she answers confidently. "Show me the man you think you've been hiding from me."

After another long moment of pensive silence, in which Mon-El mentally plots his course, he announces, "We're going to play a game. It's called 'Cry Mercy'."

"I like games," she smiles, her lips trembling. Clasping her hands behind her back, she twists back and forth from the hips, like a little girl watching her full skirt twirl around her with each move. "I like playing with you."

"This isn't just any game," he warns. "There are rules."

"Aren't there always?" she smiles, the edges of her lips trembling. She likes his rules.

"And stakes."

"Stakes?" she queries, her interest now piqued further.

"You will follow my rules," he begins. "You will do everything I say, meet my every demand, no matter how filthy—"

"Sounds fun," she interjects, already imagining the pleasure he will bring her.

Cupping her chin, he forces her to look at him. "Already the memories of that life have begun to fade," he whispers, "and when they're gone for good, I'll remember this, remember that I…cared for you…but not why. It's a memory that will be…easily disregarded, like an accusation without evidence," he warns her. "You'll just be an unbalanced Kryptonian who claims she's my mate. I may even remember that you hurt me deeply and feel the need to avenge myself upon you. If you move forward with this…there will be pain. There will be…debasement and you will be powerless to stop it."

He will forget her? Forget what they had together, except for the moments created here in his mind? Her presence here is now more necessary than ever, she realizes. "Powerless," Kara gulps, a sliver of fear creeping into her.

"Powerless…but for one thing," he qualifies, holding up his index finger. "Cry 'Mercy' and it will all come to an end. But when I say it ends, that means you will leave this place. Take your exit and go…and never look back. You will forget about Mon-El of Daxam. Is that understood, Kara Zor-El?"

"What?!" she cries, too shocked to even consider it. "No, Mon-El!"

"Those are my terms," he replies, succinctly, digging in his heals. "Cry 'Mercy' and you will leave. Please…Kara," he breaks a little…begging. "I'm doing this for your own good."

"No one decides what's best for me, but me!" she reminds him, angrily.

"A sentiment that doesn't seem to go both ways," Mon-El snaps, meeting her anger with equal force, the royal authority roaring into his voice, and watching as she shrivels beneath the truth of it.

So arrogant she was in the outside world, to believe that she knew what was best for him as though he were a child to be reared, and then bristle at his attempt to do the same for her. "I deserved that," she agrees, defeated. "And in the interest in restoring a measure of equality to our relationship…I will accept the terms of your victory," she defers, having no intention of losing.

"Good," he breathes a sigh of relief.

"Now here are mine. If I win…you will take the portal and return with me."

"Unacceptable," he says, shaking his head. What he can't tell her is that, even if he was able to return to the outside world, his mind has him trapped here, forcing memories upon him as though trying to make him recall something his conscious mind never knew. He's been here an eternity, unable to hold on to thoughts, to memories, for longer than it takes to cycle back around to them. Things that occur here seem to stay, like a wispy dream, its most salient points remembered, but his mind pushes away memories of his life with her in favor of those from a long-dead world. Already his recollections of the outside world, recently regained, grow hazy. His mind will never let him return until he puts together the puzzle his fractured psyche is trying to assemble.

"You can't make me leave," she points out, crossing her arms defiantly over her naked chest.

"You think my mind won't turn this place into a maze? Make every corridor endless, every door leading to another series of doors, leading to more endless corridors?" It was something he had already experienced on his own, when he had tried to escape the memories that imprisoned him. Once, in child-like form, he did as children do and threw a tantrum, refusing to play his mind's torturous game. After that, whatever part of his mind was running this show, began allowing him brief respites from the repetition of traumatic memories – respites like this one. He had even been allowed to experience a few of his best memories, like a trip to a beautiful planet with crystal mountains.

"I will use the portal, and come right back. Total reset," she threatens, with a carefree shrug, not even certain if such a thing is possible, but infusing as much confidence into her tone as possible. "A game isn't worth playing unless both parties have something to win. So far, your game offers little in the way of incentive for me. But understand this Mon-El…I'm not leaving you in this place. If I have stay here until my body withers, or if I have to exit a thousand times to reset…I'm not leaving you here."

Mon-El knows her, knows her stubborn arrogance, enough to accept that she is neither bluffing, nor incapable of following through on her threats. Clasping his hands behind his back, he paces back and forth, considering the options, until a third option, one that he deems acceptable presents itself.

Kara, as a new addition to his mind, is a wildcard it seems. Her presence may yet serve a purpose, allowing him to deviate from the show of memories on endless repeat, and if it does not, he can still get her to see that he isn't worth saving. Allowing her to stay buys him the time to make her see that leaving of her own free will is for the best, ensuring she will not return with any neural reset. So…today, tomorrow, eventually…she will see that he was never meant to survive his planet's destruction and she will go. That his hopes of winning her heart, of becoming a hero, or just a person worthy of her admiration…were all just the pipe dreams of a selfish good-for-nothing who thought, for a brief shining moment, that he could be more than what he was.

"If you win, you may stay with my blessing…." he decides.

It isn't what she wanted, hoping that a win would result in his total capitulation, but the stakes are not a total loss. Staying buys her time to convince him there's something worth coming home to, convince him that he's worth saving and that allowing himself to be the man she sees in him is still a viable course open to him. All he must do is accept it – and she will pay any price to ensure that he will. Smiling in relief, Kara gazes into his achingly handsome face and nods her agreement.

"As my senya," he qualifies, adding this codicil while smiling to himself.

"What's a senya?" she asks, narrowing her eyes suspiciously when she sees his cryptic smile.

"My personal concubine." It is a stroke of genius, he thinks. What better way to show a holier-than-thou Kryptonian the horrors that raised him, the filth that covers him still? On Daxam, slavery – sexual or otherwise – is not something in which he indulges, not since he understood its meaning, and the depth of damage it does to a free soul. Not when his own soul has been so similarly corrupted. It is a part of his culture, and has been for a thousand years, but it is not one with which he agrees and that is due, in part, to his father's view on the subject.

His father sees all people, including Mon-El, as inferior creatures to be commanded and bent to his will. And he takes the type of pleasure in it that can only be described as a rotting sickness – a sickness Mon-El fears would infect him eventually. It is why he never traffics in slaves, neither in this palace, nor while abroad on planets that offered such services – and because he knows all too well what it is like to discover his will is not his own. It is also why he is careful to restrict his copious sexual proclivities only to the willing, with desires aligned towards his own, and only then to a rotating roster of Adepts, rather than a single paramour or concubine. He is careful not to play favorites amongst the Adepts, so that bruises don't last and they always come back for more.

"Should you stay…you will be my senya," he continues, trailing the pad of his index finger down her cheek, capturing a tendril of hair and wrapping it around his first knuckle. "As my senya, you will be afforded rank, privilege and protection under my name…for as long as you bend to my will in all things."

"And if I don't?" she asks, made breathless by his nearness, by his touch, and by the thought of the ways he can employ to bend her to his will, whatever that might mean.

"Let's not speak of consequences until they become necessary," he replies. "They are not a part of this negotiation and I won't be locked in or limited by decisions made this early in the game. Suffice it to say that there will be consequences, and I won't hesitate to deliver them."

Kara sees right through him. He's trying to scare her enough to drive her away and plans to go to extremes to show himself in the worst light. Perhaps even to go so far as be the prince she once thought him – 'the worst of the worst'. The prince once rumored to think of nothing but himself, who drank himself into to oblivion as often as possible and serviced an untold number of women (and men, apparently), as if the palace was a royal stud farm.

Kara will play his game if these are the rules, but she will not be driven away, no matter the price she must pay or the pain and humiliation she must suffer. He is her mate, and he _will_ be restored to her, and if the cost is her pride, she will gladly pay it.

"Terms of your victory are clear," she points out, seeking clarification. "If I 'Cry Mercy' then you win and I will leave. But what sets the terms of _my_ victory? At what point do you admit defeat?" His grey eyes meet hers and she can see them darken as his pupils widen.

"When I'm too exhausted to continue, you may consider your victory assured…and well-earned," he announces.

Casting a glance at the bed, and back to the peg wall, Kara smiles internally, but schools her face to that of someone who is participating in a serious arbitration. She can win this, of this she has no doubt. With or without powers, she does not break – especially when the stakes are this high. Holding out her hand to shake his, she says, "I accept these terms."

Staring at her hand, Mon-El smiles his smuggest smile. "I prefer another way to seal a deal." He pulls her against his body and closes his mouth over hers as he kisses the breath out of her. After a long moment, her knees preparing to melt from underneath her, he tears away from the kiss. "Let's begin, then."


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: It's getting real now, y'all.

 _Did you break but never mend?_

 _Did it hurt so much you thought it was the end?_

 _Lose your heart but don't know when_

 _And no one cares, there's no one there_

 _\- The Script -"Flares"_

Chapter 6

"Yes," she agrees, her nipples already awakened by the heat of his skin against hers. "Let's begin."

Untying his pants, he lets them drop to the floor and kicks them away before stalking purposefully back to the peg wall, where he digs into a cupped receptacle pinned to the wall within easy reach. The receptacle appears to contain what looks like tangles of brightly colored pasta. Carefully, Mon-El roots out one strand, untangling it from the others and slides it free from the bunch, holding it aloft.

To the untrained eye, like Kara's, it simply appears to be a malleable strip of blue rubber or latex, about the diameter of a strand of vermicelli, less than a millimeter thick. Kara observes, fascinated, as he massages one end of the device until a filament running the length of the strip lights up inside.

Laying it gently over his palm, he cups the shaft of his half-flaccid penis, causing the blue cabling to come to life, right before her eyes. Gasping, she observes as the blue strand snakes its way around his shaft, through the bush of his pubic hair and underneath, disappearing between his legs. Efficiently, unerringly, it slithers back to the source, connecting to its other end – like an Ouroboros, devouring its own tail.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she approaches him, bending down to examine the implement. "What is it?" she asks.

"It's called a Callus Band," he informs her. "Think of it as…the Daxamite version of a cock ring." But it's a bit more than that. So very much more. The technology was invented some decades ago as an assistance device to facilitate the ability of men to pleasure multiple partners at one time. It was never meant to be used on one lover, as he is using it this day. Held captive by their agreement, she will surely be ready to cry mercy long before he is depleted. The only time he'd worn the device in the past, a few years before his planet's destruction, he'd been taking part in a carnal ritual in celebration of the goddess Lure's rise. Despite his skill in the pleasure arts, he had feared reflecting poorly upon Father and had used the device to make a good showing. It had taken him three days to recover from the exhaustion.

Shamelessly, Kara leans down to peer between his legs. It doesn't take a degree in engineering to see that when his cock gets hard, the stretchy material will place greater pressure on his testicles, tightening around them. "Does it hurt? What's its purpose? Can I see?"

"So many questions," he chuckles, tilting his head. "Something tells me I shouldn't be surprised by that…." Diving a hand into her hair, he yanks her head back again and presses downward until she's forced to drop to her knees. Eyes drowsy with the bliss of his rough guidance, she smiles dreamily up at him. "Why don't you suck my cock and find out what it does? You're in for quite a surprise."

She doesn't have to be told twice. Opening her mouth like a baby bird, she sticks out her tongue and laps at the tip of his penis as though testing it to see what will happen. She doesn't want to miss anything special. Swirling her tongue around the mushroom-shaped head, she decides to take it into her mouth, sucking on it like an icy popsicle. After a few sucks and an added swirl of her tongue, she takes him deeper, lubricating his stiffening shaft with the saliva that pools in her mouth.

Mon-El hisses at the pleasure of it; of her hot and eager mouth working him, of this Kryptonian on her knees before him like the perfect supplicant, of his hands buried in her thick tresses, ready to hold her in place should he decide to fuck her pretty mouth. The strand tightens around him as his cock thickens, allowing the blood to flow into his shaft, but preventing its easy egress.

Pulling away, Kara licks her palm for added lubrication before wrapping her fingers around him and giving the shaft a few slow pumps. Right before her eyes, in only a matter of moments, he grows to a larger size than ever before, his girth increasing until her hand is no longer able to enclose around its circumference.

"Ahhhhh," she gasps, her eyes widen, even as she wipes a stream of spittle from the side of her mouth.

"Yes," he confirms. "You see now?"

Kara nods, speechless.

And the band will make me last longer as well," he explains. "Perhaps even experience several climaxes before I go limp." It's a bit of an understatement of the facts. The Callus Band gives him a distinct advantage in their challenge, since the last time he wore one he stopped counting his orgasms before exhausting himself. Surely, he will have her crying 'Mercy' before he loses count this time, and victory will be his.

"Really?"

Mon-El doesn't grace her with an answer, only replying, "Did I say you were done?" With one hand he leads her head back to his still-thickening cock, gripping her hair tightly with both hands.

With the tip of her tongue, her blue eyes tilted up at him, she traces the sensitive vein on the underside of the now stiff penis. The color is darker as well, a rich shade of purple, and when she takes him back into her mouth she nearly chokes on the larger size of it. He will stretch her clutch to limits never before reached, and the thrill of it races down her spine straight to her core.

He yanks her harder, now indicating that she should remain still. Slowly at first, he begins fucking her mouth, his abdominals crunching as his pelvis thrusts towards her face. "Open your throat and take it," he instructs between gritted teeth. "Every inch."

His demand leaves no room for rebellion, not that she would. Grabbing on to his thick thighs, she opens her throat as best as she can. With each thrust of his hips he strikes far enough in the back of her throat to trigger her gag muscles. It is only now, as she is immobile, trapped between the hands holding her fast and his thrusting cock, that she realizes how much control he gave her in past encounters of a similar nature, all while making it seem that she was completely under his command. But now it is different; now he is mastering her and despite the discomfort she is surprisingly ravenous for more. Her jaw begins to ache and her eyes water from the strain of taking his steel-hard girth, the tears spilling down her cheeks.

Afraid that he will see these tears as a signal to stop, she reaches her hands around to the perfect, clenching globes of his ass, digging her fingernails in as she silently encourages him to take her harder.

Mon-El's head drops back with a groan. "Take it," he moans. "Get it good and wet."

" _Mmmmmm,"_ she releases a high-pitched moan, hollowing her cheeks as best she can around the growing tool, so that her saliva will lubricate him completely. " _Mmmm…mmmm…mmmm…."_ She moans in time to his thrusts.

The gag at the back of her throat feels blissful on his cock's tip, but he wants this to last for hours and hours, and he's not willing to give up his first climax so easily if he doesn't have to. He needs to master her – needs to show her who he really can be without restraint, how he was raised by the sadistic fuck he calls Father, so that she will run from this place without looking back. So that she can forget about him and move on with her life, believing the truth – that she'll have dodged a bullet when she leaves him. With one last look down at her, mouth stretched to its limit by the monster version of his cock, hair a tangled, voluminous mess, tears streaming down her face, he reaches around and pulls her hands away from his ass and withdraws from her mouth.

"What…?" she asks, confused, her throat thick with saliva and her lips, slightly worn from the stretching. "Did I do something wrong?" She reaches for him, but he sidesteps her and slaps her hands away. Though she's never been trained in such behavior, she bows her head and places her hands in her floor by her knees, like the natural submissive she is.

Surprised by this new development of her submission, he hisses as another jolt of blood rushes into his cock. "Stay there," he says. "I want to look at you." Circling around Kara, he wants to remember her – sear this image of her into his brain. Not just like this, in submissive pose, but to recall every single time their bodies have moved together in harmony. Catalogue each moment, both the beautiful and the salacious, from the first time to this…their last. It may be the last time he'll ever be able to recall the first time they made love in her loft, or having her bent over her desk at work, her breathtaking reaction to the first time he spanked her.

Naked, her long, luscious hair, mussed from his handiwork, spills over her shoulders and down her chest. Reaching down, he moves the hair until its streaming down her back, rather than obstructing his view. Perky and unaffected by gravity, nipples jutting proudly outwards, her breasts are squeezed together by the arms she holds close to her body.

Kara enjoys his examination of her, no longer feeling the desire to hide her body from him, as she did that first time they were together. Their nakedness was both curiosity and terror then, all rolled into one intense experience that would be forever etched onto her heart. But though she kneels there, an exhibition for his pleasure, it's not her body she hopes will sway his mind. It's the connection they share, something she knows is more than just physical. It's written in the stars and ordained by Rao. She doesn't need him to accept this, she only needs him to _feel_ it.

"Look at me," he commands and without hesitation she tilts her head back to look up at him.

So beautiful, Mon-El is struck breathless by the luminescence of her skin, the shine of her hair – the mess he's made of her – and the sparkle that makes her eyes look like aquamarines cut to reflect the light. He can hear the sound of his own heart cracking open in the short staccato breaths that escape from his lungs. Every sight of her must be savored, he knows. Every touch of her skin against his, every soft sigh of pleasure or scream of release that graces his ears, for he is determined it will be their last, even if it makes a total bastard out of him.

Climbing onto the bed, Mon-El situates himself on his back, propping up on his elbows, considering his options on what to do next as he contemplates the miscreant between his legs begging for attention. From experience, he knows that the longer he belays his climax, the more satisfying it will be, and he wants this night to be epic. Previous acquaintance with this device, in addition to his years of training, has taught him to befriend the kind of pain that comes from wearing this kind of special cock ring. It is a technology that both lengthens and widens an erection until the silk-skin is on the verge of bursting, a result that comes with a heavy tax of pain. Perhaps not seduced by pain quite as much as his beautiful, perfect Kara, Mon-El has learned through training to find the enjoyment when it presents itself.

Also from experience, he knows that his cock is a ways yet from attaining its full potential.

Using everything he knows, he needs to ruin her with it, until she runs from this mind palace without a glance backwards, happy to let him die here. Where he should have died in the first place. He must begin by distancing himself from her emotionally. Objectifying her in a way to which he's certain she would take offense in the outside world. Make her into his personal whore and then show her the exit, turning his back on her.

"Stand up…Kryptonian," he commands in a gruff voice, "and come here."

Kara acts quickly, popping to her feet, skipping over to the bed with a bounce in her step, standing over him like a mermaid goddess rising from the foamy sea. Her eyes rake over his supine body, his spread legs, his increasingly wide member that causes her core to clench instinctively, his tight abdominals with their smattering of hair and finally, his broad chest, perfect for placing her hands as she rides him to climax. Unconsciously, Kara licks her lips at the thought of that thing stretching her so that she would weep with the joy and the pain of it.

Laying back he stares at their reflections in the mirrored ceiling before issuing his next command. "Climb on the bed and straddle my face with your Kryptonian cunt." He stresses the hard 'c', daring her to say something about his use of this filthy word.

But she doesn't hate when he says it – not when it makes sense in context, using it to describe a body part, and not throwing it around like a weapon meant to hurt, but ammunition meant to titillate. The longer they're together, the more she discovers what turns her on, and one of the things that gets her blood pumping is when he talks dirty to her. She loves the filthy words he says and wishes she were better at it herself. Wishes sometimes that she could get out of her own head.

Placing her hands on the bed she crawls over his body, her belly brushing torturously against his erection as she stalks him like prey. She's operating on all cylinders and her engines are revving at top speed, as Kara contemplates the delicious grind of his rock-hard cock against her swelling arousal, but continues her more northerly course like the good little submissive she is. Bypassing his erection finally, Kara adds a few kisses on her way up his abdomen, across his ribs and up to his chest, where his pectorals seem to spasm beneath the siege of her lips, tongue and teeth.

When she skips his mouth and keeps crawling, Mon-El positions his body accordingly, while waiting for Kara to settle hers. Kneeling above his head, she lowers her damp cunt to his face as he sticks out his tongue to receive her, wrapping his arms around her upper thighs to hold her in place.

With no headboard close enough to reach, only a mirror before her to watch, Kara spears her fingers into his hair as his tongue goes to work relentlessly teasing her clit. He doesn't ease into it or attempt to feign gentleness, instead choosing to drive her straight towards completion. Undulating her hips forwards and backwards, grasping tightly—unforgivingly—to his hair, Kara rides his mouth, refusing to let him control her orgasm in spite of his tenacious efforts. She grows wetter, their juices mixing together as he salivates at the salty-sweet caramel flavor of her.

It's been forever since he's tasted her, an eternity in this place without the flavor of her arousal, a hell of repeating the same moments over and over, some of them good remembrances and some of them traumatic, but all of them without her. Without this. Now, determined die in this place, this makeshift Daxam, Mon-El resolves to hold nothing back for this last time, before he sends her away. He will have her in every way possible until he can no more. Gripping her upper thighs, he forcibly stills her motions, holding her against his mouth as his lips find her clit and latch on, like a newborn taking to a source of nourishment.

It takes but a single breath for her to enter a state of drifting euphoria, struck senseless by the combination of his well-trained mouth, his groomed beard against her most tender of flesh, and the boldness with which he takes control. With dreamy eyes, she studies their reflection in the mirror, his dark head moving between her thighs as she lifts her hands to cup her breasts, plucking at her nipples until the areolae pucker painfully. Thighs contracting with anticipation, Kara pants unevenly, each breath building a dam against the flood of sensation that is certain to swamp her when it finds her at last.

" _Ahh_ …. _unnhhh_ … _yes_! Oh _Rao_ ," she moans, each mono-syllable familiar and treasured by his ears.

He varies his technique, taking short but powerful draws on her clit that leave her lungs feeling like an airless vacuum. Following a series of pulls, he retreats to tease the increasingly sensitive bud of nerves with the tip of his dexterous tongue. Just when she thinks his pattern is predictable, he tilts her hips, jabbing his greedy tongue into her clasping, hungry passage, swirling and lapping at her warm honey as if it's life-giving sustenance. And in some ways, it is. He's a man drowning in hopelessness, rescued only by these last moments of pleasuring her, of the kittenish mewls that spill from her lips like gems from a velvet pouch, and of the thighs vibrating next to his head, warning of impending implosion.

Kara's fingers turn limp as the electrical stimuli racing through her blood and underneath her skin, transforms every part of her body into a gelatinous goo held together by vibrating flesh. Arching her spine, Kara leans back, Mon-El's bruising grip on her thighs doing the lion's share of helping her maintain her balance as her hands find her heels, his mouth working her sopping arousal unceasingly. He groans and growls, attending to his task like a starving beast stumbling upon a meal prepared just for him. Content to do nothing but feast upon her banquet, he cares nothing for the idea of coming up for air.

So acute is her pleasure, nerves sparking and firing with such vehemence, it's impossible to believe that this is all taking place in her mind. In _his_ mind. It's all the more unfathomable when the pleasure builds to a crest; and when he taps her thigh, giving her permission, that crest breaks over the dam as though smashing it to bits, drowning her in fire that rages beneath her skin, licking down her spine and spreading outward.

Kara's entire body goes limp, swaying to one side, and the next thing she knows, she's on her knees and her face is buried in the impossibly soft velveteen of the bed cover. Hips held high by his strong hands, she is completely exposed, completely open to him, and her clutch convulsing in unbearable pleasure – a still-hungry mouth, waiting for the sustenance it needs.

On his knees behind her, his legs on the outside of hers, he grips her tight enough to bruise. Her skin is soft and malleable as he grips at the globes of her ass, and Mon-El draws back a hand, bringing it down hard on the creamy expanse of her backside. Echoing through the room, the loud smack results almost instantly in a pink approximation of his handprint on the canvas of her ass.

" _Unnnggghhhhh_ ," she grunts in response, still barely sentient after her orgasm. Biting down on her bottom lip, her fingers fist handfuls of silver-grey velveteen. Without her powers to counteract his blows, the sting of his spank doesn't dissipate as quickly as she's accustomed, instead lingering on before turning into a burning heat instead of a comforting warmth. Before she has time to truly analyze these new, richer sensations – and how she feels about them – his hand comes down on her other cheek. Her body jerks in response to the assault, instinctively shying from the pain. The resulting burn is too intriguing to be denied, however, so she leans into the next one.

His cock grows harder, swelling both in length and width, at the sight of her pale skin growing redder and redder with each application of his hand to her ass. For good measure, he gives each cheek two more spankings, alternately each side. With every smack, Kara jerks and then settles back into place, her bottom giving a tiny shimmy. Whether the invitation that shimmy provides is conscious or subliminal in nature, he isn't certain, he only knows that her body begs for him. It won't be long before her mouth provides an additional appeal.

Silently encouraging the tension of her body to tighten, he grasps his shaft and rubs it against the hot, red globe of first one cheek and then the other, reveling in the fire that burns on the surface of her skin and beneath. Purposely, he avoids her glistening, clasping slit, where he knows she wants the very tool he brushes against her skin. On the mass of red handprints, he leaves a trail of iridescent pre-ejaculate, marking her with the liquid that leaks from the purple, bulbous glans of his cock.

" _Unnngghhhh,_ " she groans, the sound rising in pitch to indicate pleasure with just a hint of discontentment. While he appreciates her more feral vocalizations, and the primal demand of her jutting pelvis, he wants to hear her beg.

Glancing over his shoulder, he studies the wall of accoutrements hanging from their pegs. On the outside, where her skin is impenetrable and the bright purple of a bruises applied for pleasure stubbornly refuse to form, most of these devices would serve no purpose, and would likely end up in pieces. But here, her powers are a memory, as are his.

Mon-El climbs off the bed, much to her chagrin and vocal displeasure. "Where are you going?" she whines.

From the side of the bed, he lays one more spank on her displayed backside. Slowly, gently, he drags the pads of his fingertips over the enflamed flesh, both to soothe and to tickle, her nerve endings made even more receptive by his ministrations. Taunting her with his touch, Mon-El slides his middle finger into her wet sheath, one knuckle deep.

"Yes," she sighs, pressing her hips back, hoping to draw it in deeper. However, a keening whine of disappointment spills out when deeper penetration is not forthcoming.

Still, it's not the begging he longs to hear. Mon-El runs his finger along the slit, to tease and to arouse, but not to satisfy. Glancing down at the floor, he's reminded of the straps and cuffs anchored with U-bolts to the raised platform supporting the bed and he flashes on a conversation about Nth-metal they had the last time they were in bed together. So few of those memories remain in his head now that he's unsure of where to place this new flash in his shelf, so many books gone that memory gaps cause them to list and fall, the remaining shadows unable to stand straight.

Unaware of the sight that instigated the memory, or the sorrow that accompanies it, Kara smiles at the flash, despite the unwelcome sort of pain that streaks through her head as the pictures intrude upon her mind.

"On your back," he orders. When she hesitates, gripping the coverlet between her fingers, he reaches for her hair and jerks her head up until she's dragged to a kneeling position.

Kara's nipples stiffen to agonizingly neglected peaks in response to the dominant manner with which he controls her body. She swallows heavily, the long column of her vulnerable neck exposed to him as he forces her head further back. With one hand fisted tightly in her thick tresses, another hand cups a single breast, lazily - threateningly – rolling the turgid nipple between thumb and forefinger. She sighs happily at the thought of their boundaries taking another push outward in search of limits. She hasn't found one yet.

"As the Prince of Daxam, I have a certain reputation to maintain. It's what Father's subjects demand, or so he says," Mon-El growls, his voice angry and authoritative, his hot breath washing over her ear as he flicks her nipple with the pad of his thumb. "I am known to enjoy a good party, to be easy going, but every now and then a subject will get a little too familiar – convince themselves they can pick and choose which commands they will follow and which they will ignore. Strict correction will be necessary then. It is for their own protection, Kryptonian," he explains. "Because should Father hear that these misdeeds went ignored, his punishment would make my 'gentle' correction look like child's play." Releasing her from his hold, he pushes her down to the bed. "I think it's time you discovered what it's like to be corrected by the Prince of Daxam."

She wants this, she realizes. Yearns for it, even. Needs to be cleansed of this heavy guilt that she carries and will do anything to be rid of it. Following his instruction, she rolls over onto her back and nods, reaching out her hands to brush them against his belly and thighs. She makes a play for his cock but he slaps her hands away none too gently. "I was such a bad girl," she confesses, without a trace of artifice in her tone, spreading her legs in invitation. "I went behind your back and betrayed you. I need to be punished."

"Yes, you do," he agrees, his voice ominous with the promise of pain yet to come. "And you will be, Kryptonian. You will be."

Kara bites her bottom lip, and swallows the nervous lump in her throat and squirms a little on her back, readying herself for whatever punishment he has planned.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: (hella) Explicit

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: I live for the comments. Also, this story is not for children, or most adults. READ RESPONSIBLY!

 _You're looking in the wrong place for my love_

 _Don't think because you're with me this is real_

 _You're looking in the wrong place for my love_

 _Don't stop what you're doing 'cause I like that too_

 _\- Zayn - "wRoNg"_

 **Chapter 7**

Bending over, he picks up the heavy strap made of the thick skin of a patta'an, a herding beast that roams the flatlands of Malton Plains, just a few hours ride from Capitol City. Clasping her forearm, he places Kara's wrist in the cuff squeezing it closed until the lock automatically engages with a hiss and a click, securing her tight enough to leave marks, but not to cut off the circulation entirely. "Do you know why this room is so large, Kryptonian?"

Watching him move from one side of the bed to the other via the mirrors above her, she guesses, "You mentioned orgies…and there were rumors – even on Krypton." Examining the leather straps, she finds that it's made of a rough, gray animal hide that has a slight, shimmery scaly quality to it, as though a rhinoceros and a trout had a love-child.

"Yes," he chuckles, recalling a few of the better rumors published on the Daxcess, "but there were usually no more than six or seven people for that," he explains, picking up the matching confinement strap from the floor. He takes a moment to adjust the length to reach her, avoiding her eyes as he schools her on the uses of the sex room, or 'chancel', as he calls it. As he secures the lock of the cuff around her second wrist, he lets his fingers trail down her arm a bit before releasing her arm to let it fall back to the bed. Then reaching across her, he takes the secondary straps attached to the cuffs and buckles them together. In the mirror above her, she can see a large silver ring on the straps, and she wonders about its purpose.

"So…if not just orgies…what then?"

"Are you familiar with the term…Daxamite Dinner Party?" he inquires, a smile spreading across his face as the clear vision of a plan takes shape in his mind. "You see…there's no point in correcting someone, unless you can make an example of them," he answers, cryptically. Mon-El closes his eyes and suddenly the room is filled with the sound of raucous applause and more than a few whistles.

Surrounding the bed now are round, well-padded lounge chairs, clearly designed to be large enough for two (or more) people to comfortably sprawl. On each chair, mid-height backs circle around half of the chair, supporting a bevy of throw pillows for comfort, and a recessed tray table on either end to put food and drink within easy reach of the chairs' occupants. Fifteen or more of these lounges, in two rows, form a semicircle around the bed, the chairs in the back row offset from those in the first, so there's not a bad seat in the house.

Lifting her head, she's shocked to find the room now bursting to the seams with an audience, two dozen or more Daxamite nobles, both men and women, as well as two servants offering refreshments from a tray, and an Adept standing at Mon-El's elbow. Knowing that they're all figments of his imagination doesn't stop the flush of embarrassment that creeps across her skin.

"She blushes," a handsomely appointed older gentleman points out her mortification. "When was the last time you saw a woman blush?" the silver-haired man asks the group, his voiced awed with incredulity.

"She's Kryptonian, Counselor Sabin," Mon-El replies, as though that should explain everything.

And it must, because the entire room emits a collective, "Ahhhh."

"It's intoxicating, isn't it?" Mon-El inquires.

"Yes, my prince," answers a raven-haired woman, as though keen to be the teacher's pet. Somewhere in her early thirties, the woman is dressed, if the term were used charitably, in a sleek black cocktail gown that comes barely to mid-thigh. Her breasts spill completely out of the low, square décolletage, her nipples covered by bejeweled pasties which are connected by three-silver chains that reflect the light as if they had been polished for hours.

From Kara's position on the bed, and the woman's provocative manner of sitting, Kara can see straight up her skirt to her bare and already glistening slit. Made all the more aware of her own exposed slit, Kara squeezes her legs together, as if it might afford her some measure of modesty. Forgetting that her wrists are tied to the platform, she yanks her hands down, as if to cover her nakedness, and is surprised when the leather bands fight back, tugging her arms back in place.

"They're constructed from the outer skin of a patta'an," Mon-El reveals, running a finger down the center of her chest to circle around her belly button. "Their meat is inedible, but their skin is dynamic to the environment. When alive, they adapt to different climates as well as to outside stimuli, such as sharp objects or energy weapons. If one can manage to kill a patta'an, their hides are prized for slave training. Applying pressure to a patta'an hide causes it to constrict in response, as though the animal's instinct is still active – much the way a malak bird runs in circles after its head has been struck from his body. Attempting to escape one's patta'an bindings has been known to result in fatalities and the only way to cut a patta'an binding is to use a blade heated to a thousand degrees. You're not going anywhere, so I don't recommend tugging on them too hard, Kryptonian." Leaning forward, he reminds her, "You know how to stop this."

Ignoring his suggestion, Kara tugs the bindings. It's almost as if she can't stop herself from doing exactly what he's warned her not to do. To no one's surprise, the bindings tighten, the strap shrinking as is pulls each arm closer to the sides of the huge mattress.

"Has she not been trained?" another man questions, this one snacking from a dish being held by a servant. Judging from his protruding stomach, he could do with a little less snacking. His other hand rubs at his crotch as though teasing his own cock to response, but having little reaction.

"She's had no real training, Lord Mos," Mon-El announces to the room. "Just games. I've been too easy on her by Daxam standards."

"And by royal standards…clearly," Lord Mos chortles.

"I usually find her far more compliant than this," he says, though he's not entirely sure from where the words, or the sentiment, come. His memory of this Kryptonian is frustratingly vague.

"The little Kryptonian must be taught that compliance to royalty is compulsory on this planet – to all those who wish to keep their heads. I find that pain is an excellent teacher, Your Highness," another man speaks up. This one's eyes are dark, his brows tilted downwards so that his forehead creases angrily, his posture is such that Kara might believe he has a titanium rod holding him up instead of spine. He appears to be a man who enjoys doling out pain.

"You are the expert in training, Commander-Lord Raines. What might you suggest?" Mon-El inquires. He knows the man well, knows his proclivities, and can guess where his inquiry might lead.

"I would begin with clamps," Raines replies, with a careless shrug. Like the rest of him, his voice is gruff but also heightened with anticipation – the verbal equivalent of watering at the mouth.

"Excellent choice," Mon-El nods in agreement. Raines grins as though he's answered a test question correctly. "Commander-Lord Raines trains the green recruits aspiring to the Lurian Defense Corps. A high pain threshold is a prized asset for the Lurians," the prince explains, his words laced with innuendo. "And I'm told the women _quite_ enjoy their training, often complaining when it comes time to graduate. Isn't that so, Lord Raines?"

"It is, Your Highness," the nobleman confirms, an accomplished leer on his face.

Without moving from his place at the foot of the bed, Mon-El nods to a woman, dressed in the sheer gown of an Adept, who pulls something down from the wall of accoutrements. Coming to stand in attendance beside the bed, the Adept looms over them, hands clasped behind her back, as Mon-El crawls over Kara body. He lowers himself against her, their skin finally meeting. Fitting his cock into the crevice where her thighs meet, Mon-El groans with exultation and nestles into their warmth, rolling his hips against her in a tantalizing dry hump meant to tease her. Had he less than ironclad control, he could spill his seed all over her right now. Several ladies gasp appreciatively at his movements, perhaps at the sight of his ass and balls from behind, and turning her head, Kara catches sight of several women slipping their hands beneath the hemlines of their skirts.

"They won't allow themselves to come," he tells her, following her gaze, glancing back over his shoulder as he slowly undulates his pelvis into her thighs again. "It's considered selfish on Daxam. But I wouldn't be surprised if several of them seek privacy before I'm done with you. But it's more likely that they won't."

"Oh," she replies, another blush staining her cheeks. She understands his implication that this entire exercise may devolve into a sexual free-for-all worthy of an ancient Roman feast of Bacchanalia. Adrenaline flooding her bloodstream has her entire body shaking nervously, as mentally she fights her body's urge to spread her thighs open wide to cradle his hips. Searching his face for the Mon-El she knows and loves, she finds none of the intimacy or desperate emotion she's accustomed to seeing reflected in the steel grey of eyes. He's still Mon-El, of that she has no doubt, but there are pieces missing. Pieces she helped to put there that he's somehow managed to…tuck away somewhere. This is a man of different burdens now, but without the heavy loss of his planet's demise that shadows him in the outside world.

As he warned, the memories of their life together which intruded upon his mind have now receded, like the ebb of a winter's tide, into some unreachable recess. His recollections strike them both, but then fade back into the darkness for him, leaving only the slightest imprint of light, the way one's eyes leave a negative image when struck unprepared by the detonation of a flash bulb.

The soft, familiar grey of the prince's irises is now gone, replaced by the hard glint of black pupils with only a sliver of color remaining, just as only a splinter of her Mon-El seems to linger, threatening to slip further away by the moment.

This is going to happen, Kara accepts, her eyes scanning the audience. After all, she begged for punishment, and her body burns for whatever he plans to dish out, not one iota deterred by the crowd of people set to watch and enjoy her penance, nor the alteration of the man determined to provide it. Even now, in spite of the anxious quivering of her entire body, and the ruthless hardening of the man she is already coming to think of as 'the prince', she wants him to fuck her mercilessly. Her mind tells her that this should be a terrifying and humiliating experience, but her body finds arousal in it unlike any she's felt previously. It's a dichotomy she has trouble reconciling on a logical level, so she makes a conscious decision to heed her baser physical instincts, instead of the clamoring higher brain that often leads her astray.

The prince hovers over her, his elbows locked to hold him upright as he rocks his hips into her closed thighs, seemingly content to dry hump her all the way to his climax. Will that be her punishment? His legs, on the outside of hers, squeeze together tightly, forcing hers to stay closed. More and more intrigued by the audience, her eyes cast about, alighting on a nearby man with eyes the shade of emerald green, a shaggy lock of light blonde curls falling carelessly over his eyes, the mere shadow of a ginger beard. Brushing the lock of hair out of his view, he leans back in his chair, his hands dangling over the arm rests, seemingly content to observe, rather than cranking up his own arousal by touching himself. Something inside of her sees the familiar in the sparkle of his smaragdine eyes and when the man winks at her, those eyes burning with desire, Kara presses her thighs more tightly together as the greedy, yawning feeling grows in her core.

"He wants to fuck me," she whispers, her voice shaking.

"They all want to fuck you, my little Kryptonian," the prince replies, pausing the rock of his hips. Her body stiffens beneath him and her bright blue eyes widen. "Does that frighten you?" he challenges, looking for a hard limit to exploit.

Never more aware of her own helplessness, she instinctively tugs at her arms before remembering that the restraints will shrink in response. Refusing to admit this as a weakness, lest he use it against her to gain the advantage, Kara shakes her head vehemently. "You can do whatever you like to me," she says defiantly, but doesn't look him in the eye. She can't recall feeling this frightened, this powerless, not since watching Alex's plane fall in a fiery descent as she desperately tried to take to the skies to save it.

Something sparks in his eyes and he turns his head away before looking back at her, his stubbled jaw ticking with anger. "You must think the most awful things of Daxam."

Realizing her mistake, she rushes to excuse her implication, "That's not what I meant."

"When those of age are _consenting_ ," he emphasizes, "we enjoy sex on Daxam, in all of its many forms and intrigues. Unlike Kryptonians who keep their natural urges carefully in check, and buried under gowns that drape to the floor. Is it true that Kryptonians blush at the sight of a naked ankle?" he wonders.

"No!" she scoffs. "That's ridiculous."

"That's the story that children of Daxam tell when they speak of Kryptonians. Perhaps we shouldn't listen to rumors so much. At any rate, rape is a rare event on Daxam and punishable by death. We are all sexual beings, but we don't hold to forcing the unwilling. Not when there are so many eager participants. For those types of horrors, you can look to my father." Nuzzling into her cheek right next her ears, he whispers enticingly, "But you'd be surprised what some people become willing – even eager – to do once they get a taste of this life…Kryptonian. If you wish to experience the pleasure with multiple partners, all you'd have to do…is beg me with your pretty little mouth."

Kara shivers, body growing hotter as her hips squirm a bit beneath him.

"But for now…our audience will have to content themselves with watching me play with what's _mine_." He proves his point by lifting one hand from the mattress, his hipbones digging into the crease of her thighs as he slaps her breast.

"Ow!" Kara complains, squeezing her eyes shut, forehead crinkling. To her surprise, a shot of electricity races straight for her core, and her nipple hardens. The audience murmurs appreciatively as redness spreads across the side of her breast. " _Mmmmmm_ ," she hums, pressing her lips together as heat spreads across the abused breast.

"Slap it again," she hears a deep voice hiss, like a prayer to the gods.

Grinning, a wild gleam in his eye, their prince complies, slapping her breast just to watch the plump flesh jiggle at the rough contact. He relishes the rising bright pink on the white canvas that contrasts the darker color of her nipple and areola. Upon the third slap, Kara's pelvis jerks in response, causing the head of his cock to slide up her thighs and into the apex of her wet seam, where he all but pummels her swollen clit, causing her neck to bow back as a high-pitched whine escapes from deep within her.

"Naughty girl," he admonishes with a smirk, switching hands and slapping the opposite breast. "So naughty. Say it."

"I'm a naughty girl," she whimpers.

"Again." Slap.

"I'm a naughty girl. I'm so naughty, daddy." Slap.

"Master," he corrects. "Since you aspire so desperately to be my concubine, you should begin by using the correct honorific."

Her mouth opens to protest, but then snaps shut at his head tilt, the prince's eyebrows rising in non-verbal challenge, reminding her that she's free to leave any time upon use of another 'm' word. "Master," she surrenders, feeling the unappealing and unalluring burden of control slip further away.

"Louder," he commands. Slap.

"Mmmmmm," she moans, the sting spreading all the way down to her toes, which curl in response. "Master," she projects, the word dripping easily – erotically – from her mouth as though it belongs there. Much more erotic than expected. Kara is more naked before him now than she has ever been and where she thought she might find regret and anxiety, she finds only catharsis. "I'm so naughty, Master."

"Yes, you are." Slap.

With each slap, blood rushes into the sensitive tissue of her areola turning her nipples into rigid pebbles that reach upwards towards him, like snakes charmed out of their baskets by the tune he composes. He adjusts his position, spreading his knees further apart and sitting up on his haunches, so that he can use both hands to deliver sharp, quick blows, designed to create a maximum sting. Her pelvis thrusts upward with each blow, but his change of position leaves her denied the jab of his glans into her slit. Instead, brought down by its own weight, his cock juts downwards, the glans just barely brushing against her seam and taunting her with its promise of unbelievable fulfillment. Thanks to the Daxamite cock ring, it's grown larger than she's ever seen it, ever could have imagined an erection could grow – easily as thick in circumference as his wrist and at least two inches longer than usual.

Noticing the direction of her gaze, he glances down, judging the weight and size of his tool and the gleam of anticipation in her barely-blue eyes. So aroused by all of the stimuli, there are only thin rims of cornflower blue around the voids of her black pupils. "Not quite yet," he informs her, judging his cock not at full readiness. "It hasn't reached its full size yet."

Head reeling with the idea, her mouth gapes open, looking for all the world like she's waiting for him to slide that organ into her mouth. "H-Hasn't reached its f-full size?" she stutters once she's regained the power of speech. "How much bigger will it get?"

A slow, devilish smile spreads across his face before he answers, "You'll see, Kryptonian." It's both a purr and a threat. Leaning forward he places his hands on either side of her head, allowing his cock to lay across her flat belly, so that she can feel the sheer weight of it. How will that feel slamming into her?

As if reading her mind, he answers, "When I stuff this into your tight hole, it will stop the breath in your lungs. At first, you'll feel like I'm ripping you apart, invading the deepest part of you, into your womb, but then…when that initial pain subsides and the air returns to your lungs…you'll beg me to never stop fucking you. There won't be a part of you it can't touch."

"Goddess, yes!" the raven-haired beauty with jeweled pasties sighs, and sinks deeper into her chair. "If the Kryptonian doesn't take it, I will," she purrs, just loud enough for Kara to hear.

"Thank you for your kind offer, Lady Breck," Mon-El replies, as he sits back up without taking his eyes from Kara's breasts.

Kara bucks her hips hard, her eyes now burning with rage. If she had her powers 'Lady Breck' would fear for her life. If Mon-El's cock was twice the size she would take it before she'd let Lady Breck anywhere near him.

"Such a jealous nestling," he admonishes, playfully. The prince's finger swirls around her belly button before poking inside, unleashing bright sparks of sensation in her abdomen that race straight for her core. "My little Kryptonian would like nothing more than to tear out your throat right now, Lady Breck."

"That's a show I might enjoy," the man with dark eyes and angry eyebrows, Commander-Lord Raines, announces drolly.

"I like it when you buck against me, your eyes electric, and your lips pursed so defiantly," he chuckles, cupping her stinging tits, his long fingers wrapping around them as his thumbs flick her nipples. "Your body isn't even trying to hide how much you enjoy this. It's like you float on a cloud of pain," he says, musingly, "instead of drowning in the ocean it can be." He withdraws one hand and sinks it between her thighs. She cries out at the pleasure that streaks through her as he wets his fingers with her honey, holding them aloft to show the room how they glisten. "You want me fuck you," he says, his voice softer than the velvet skin of his cock. "Say it."

"I want you to fuck me," she complies, her voice breathy while her entire body burns for him.

"Perhaps," he considers, shrugging with one shoulder. Mon-El tilts his head as he surveys her form. "But not right now. I think I'd much rather feast on these." Sliding down, he covers her body again with his, before cupping one breast and taking the straining nipple into his mouth. This is no tender homage to her breast, but a brusque ravishment with lips, teeth and tongue, accompanied with the obscenely loud sounds of suckling, Mon-El grunting and groaning, his hands plumping the flesh of her breasts to ready them.

"Mmmmm," she whines between pressed lips, arching her back and thrusting her breast further into his mouth. Her breasts and nipples are unfathomably more sensitive from his earlier assault. Each slap bringing the blood racing to the skin as if in protest, and that blood awakened every nerve ending with which his mouth now toys. She feels the wetness increase between her thighs with each rough draw of his mouth.

Sucking in as much of her breast into his mouth as he can take, his lips create an airtight seal as he draws powerfully upon it, while listening to the secret code of her keening sounds. Releasing her breast with a wet pop, he captures the nipple between his teeth, worrying it back and forth a few times before tugging it up. He thinks of what lies ahead, knowing that her breasts will perk, her nipples harden, each time she looks at him after this night. But then he shakes the thought away, remembering that this must be their last time together – though the distracting pain caused by the cock ring prevents him from remembering exactly why that must be so.

Switching to the other breast, he leaves his hand behind on the first to keep it from feeling abandoned. Suckling, he nurses her like a milk-less mother, before worrying her nipple with his teeth, drawing from her the last bit of sensation that he can on his own. And when he recognizes his own limits, he holds out a hand without looking away from his task. The Adept beside the bed drops something to his hand and smiles down at Kara who can only lift one side of her mouth, so intense is the transition of pain into pleasure.

Withdrawing with an audible growl, he holds up the device, a mess of chains, with clips on either end. "Clamps," he announces, answering her unasked question.

On the outside world, she wouldn't bat an eyelash because the clamps would break before they have an effect on her skin. But here, her nipples are so impossibly responsive to the touch that she can't imagine not experimenting with the sensation, even though her breasts are already swollen, both with prolonged arousal and from his very capable manhandling. Digging her shoulders into the mattress, she offers her breasts up for clamping, and is rewarded with a smattering of applause from the audience. Unexpectedly, a part of her thrills inside at the show of their obvious approval, her life as a hero having subconsciously trained her to preen at the sound of clapping. She's always been a sucker for applause.

Each clamp placed on her nipple elicits a gasp – two on each one, facing in opposite directions. Despite her overresponsive nerve endings, the nipple clamps don't seem that bad, Kara thinks at first, until he pinches the end of one clamp and it turns like ratchet, tweaking the nipple before falling back into its original setting. "Rao!" she cries, then bites down on her lower lip to contain the expression. A tweak of the second nipple has her hips jerking and her clutch grasping for the cock that is out of its reach.

Her head thrashes back and forth as the clamps twist automatically in their notches, falling back in place to give her a few seconds of sweet relief before cranking again. Chest bright pink from his harsh but titillating treatment, Mon-El considers spilling his seed all over his Kryptonian captive, bathing her in it for his own exclusive satisfaction. Instead, Mon-El dismounts her, kneeling beside Kara, observing how his treatment of her has made her skin glow while taking his cock in hand, teasing it with the tips of his fingers. Hissing at the contact, more blood rushing inescapably into his shaft, pushing it to a most painful limit. The stretchy loop on the underside tugs at his testicles, narrowing the escape route for his seed, so that when it does come it won't be wholly satisfying, reminding him that will take more than a few attempts before his penis will be exhausted from this night's work. His urge to ejaculate will become more than mere desire, he knows – the compulsion of it hitting him so hard and so fast, it will be impossible to ignore or deny.

"That's my naughty pet," he praises, his arousal like heavy gravel in his throat.

Through a breach in her eyelids, Kara watches him stroke his erection, teasing it without any intent of offering it what it needs to find gratification. Nearly frantic to be taken, she burns for that glorious appendage to fill her, stretch her and, sliding her legs open a few inches, she tempts him with a glimpse of the paradise her wet heat offers. "Put it in me," she entices, her voice slurring a little. "Master."

Movement in the wall mirror draws Kara's attention and her eyes meet those of the older gentleman with silver hair, Counselor Sabin, as he leans a young woman with fiery red tresses back against his chest. The young woman, no older than twenty, closes her eyes dreamily as the man ruches up the hemline of her skirt to reveal nothing in the way of undergarments, but instead a neatly groomed fire crotch. His other hand tugs on the straps of her bodice until it falls away, revealing generous, milky white breasts. Feasting on her neck, he uses one hand to cup a breast while the other he plunges into the delicately groomed nest of red curls between her legs. All of this he does without breaking eye contact with Kara.

Jealousy streaks through her she observes the man using two fingers to tease the young woman's clit. In response, the redhead mewls and whimpers, moving her hips in such a way as to press harder against his fingers.

As if to torment her further, another man, this one much younger and with movie-star good looks, drops to his knees in front of the chair of a middle-aged woman. From all outward appearances, she's a noblewoman of dignity and class, her dress starkly more conservative than those of the other women in the room. Placing his hands on her knees, he presses them gently, tentatively apart and asks, "Would you like me pleasure you with my mouth, Mistress?"

Her conservative façade cracks as dark, sultry eyes tilt down to gaze upon her boy-toy with a favoring glance. Lightly, she runs her fingers through his silky mass of chestnut hair as he moves her skirt aside, revealing an unseen slit all the way to the hip, invisible against the dark navy of the fabric to all but those who know of its presence. Freed from the confines of her gown, the woman guides his head between her thighs, leaning her head back against the cushioned chair. Her submissive, clearly keen to serve her, lifts her legs and hooks them over her shoulders, as he descends upon her wet and waiting arousal.

"Not so much that I miss the show," she warns the young man, carding her hand lovingly through his hair.

"As you wish, Mistress," his muffled reply come from between her thighs. Kara takes note of his obedience.

Clenching her immobile fists amidst her growing frustration as her own wet and waiting arousal remains ignored. Lust bubbles up from her core in the form of panting breaths as she witnesses the smorgasbord of sex to which the audience devolves; now including a woman, her skin so dark it reflects the light as if brushed with silver, kissing the breasts of another who fists her hands in her partner's curls, riding the dark woman's thigh.

The moans and groans of the open pleasure of others only serve to make her needier than she's ever recalled before. The nipple clamps squeeze the swollen buds again, their dark pink hue having transitioned to a purple, very close to the shade of his engorged shaft. "Mon-El," she gasps, pleading. "I need you. I need your cock now," she groans, her back arching, nearly out of her head with craving.

The room releases a collective gasp, sexual activity taking a synchronized pause, the boy-toy removing his head from between the conservative woman's thighs to look back at Kara, horrified. A twitter of whispers rises that have nothing to do with murmurs of pleasure.

"She dares!" huffs the hefty gentleman in the back, his eyebrows rising.

"The Kryptonian thinks she makes the demands," a voice in the crowd giggles. Despite lifting her head, Kara is unable to locate the source of the giggle, but guesses it belongs to a young woman, perhaps the petite blonde with purple streaks in her pixie-cut hair, leaning her elbow on a chair back in front of her, her chin resting in her hand. Kara's hypothesis is proven correct when the woman adds, "Isn't that just like a Kryptonian?"

"She calls the prince by his _familiar_ name," says a taller woman standing behind the blonde. She plants an unforgiving smack on the backside of the girl bent forward in front of her, as though to punish her for Kara's faux pas.

"The Kryptonian must be quelled," offers a man with striking lavender eyes. He sits to the edge of his chair, his legs spreading wide as he prepares himself to watch whatever comes next.

"Quell!" someone calls out, followed by another. Another voice echoes the sentiment and then another, until the room becomes a unified chant calling for her chastisement. The only one not joining in the chant is the blonde-haired man with emerald eyes. He only smiles at her warmly and gives her a nod of encouragement.

"You couldn't be more right," their prince agrees. "Her unsanctioned familiarity shouldn't go unanswered. Not here and not in front of my most loyal subjects." Leaning forward, he whispers out of the audience's earshot, "Why do you think they stay so loyal? It's so they can witness moments like these." His hand caresses her damp thigh, coaxing it to open further. "I love a good quelling," he adds.

Unsure what's involved in this process, Kara smiles gratefully when his hand strokes her thigh, waiting for his fingers to dip into her aching arousal. To slide into her hungry cunt, so that she can grip his long fingers tightly as he dives deep. What she receives instead is the sharp pop of his hand spanking her clit, no gentler than the treatment her ass or her tits received. "Fuck!" she screams, as tendrils of white-hot electricity wrap around her hips and gather at the base of her spine before traveling up to her scalp.

"I do love that word," their prince announces. That's all it takes for the audience to begin muttering it, the prince's approval of the word making its use now the height of fashion. "Say it again," he demands, drawing back to slap her clit again.

"Fuck!" she cries, instinctively drawing her legs tightly together to protect the swollen bundle of nerves from the overwhelming stimulus. The pain turns quickly to pleasure and then back again, the two bleeding together until they are a single indistinguishable animal. Instead of finding the limits, the boundaries to her sexual kink, she finds only a deeper well of arousal. It's like she's thrown a rock over the lip of a well, and she's still waiting to hear the splash. The pain, the audience that makes her the center of attention, the way he dominates her in bed, but loves her so selflessly out of it – together these elements build new structure to the person that is Kara Zor-El – like expanding a home with new rooms. Rooms that belong to her and Mon-El alone.

"When I fuck you… _if_ I fuck you," he taunts her, "it won't be because of your demands. It will be because I have you at my mercy. Do you understand, Kryptonian?"

"Yes, Master," she nods. "I was a naughty girl again." The fire under her skin and at the ends of her nerves has caused a sheen of sweat to form on her body, unlike any that happens when she has her powers. Her skin weeps with it, and she finds that it makes her feel even more exposed.

"Keep your legs open," he cajoles, teasing her legs apart with gentle fingers. At the sound of his soft voice, her legs fall apart like a flower's petals opening for the sun's rays.

When she doesn't immediately follow his instructions, he spanks her clit, harder than ever before, with a wet smack. " _Please, Rao_!" she moans, pelvis jolting, on the cliff's edge of her orgasm and needing only his permission to tip over. Again, her legs close despite his instruction, more for the purpose of squeezing her thighs in search of some small measure of relief from the throbbing deep within her, rather than to escape his guidance.

Mon-El looks up at the Adept beside the bed and nods his head. Curtsying, her hands clasped demurely in front of her and head bowed, she hurries over to the peg wall and pulls down another apparatus. With another curtsy, she places the long rod-shaped device in his outstretched palms and takes a few steps backwards.

Kara can practically hear the audience rubbing their hands together in glee as they enjoy her quelling. Or rubbing other body parts. Her anticipation, mixed with a dash of fear – okay, maybe a little more than a dash, if she's honest with herself—ratchets up a few notches. She never allows fear to stop her, Kara reminds herself, her entire body quivering as though it's freezing rather than feeling like it is on fire. What will he do now?

The rod he holds, about two feet long by her guess, has thick, wide loops on either end. He slides one loop over her foot until it reaches her ankle. Seeing his intent now, she lifts her other foot, toes pointed, to maneuver it into the loop at the other end of the rod. "

Kara swipes her tongue out, tasting the sweat that gathers on her upper lip. If it meant pleasing him, getting him to come inside of her and fill her with his seed, Kara would offer anything, do anything. She would climb over every man and woman in this room to spread her legs for him. But it did not appear that she would have to.

Pressing a button on the rod, the loops tighten around her ankles, much like the nipple clamps, except once constricted to the point of no escape, they do not release. With the rod placed between her ankles she is unable to comfortably close her legs, neither to seek momentary relief for the throbbing, nor to escape the quelling of her cunt.

"Farther, Your Highness," someone at the back of the room calls out.

Gazing down at her lush, red field ready to be furrowed, he chuckles and calls out to the voice, "Having difficulty seeing from back there, Lord Urs?"

"Indeed, my prince," replies the nobleman.

"Well I wouldn't want anyone to miss the best part," he answers. Grasping the rod in the center with both hands, he gives it a sharp twist and then presses outward. Doubling in length, the bar spreads her legs far enough apart to leave her sufficiently exposed to give everyone a view, no matter their vantage points in the room.

"Such a lovely pink garden she has," the man with emerald eyes comments, speaking for the first time.

"Thank Lord Ral, for his kind words, Kryptonian," the prince instructs.

Kara turns her head sharply in surprise, sweat spraying from her brow, and looks the man right in his breathtaking eyes. So this is Ral? No wonder he seemed so familiar to her when she first saw him. Her last glimpse of him had been as a young teen, but since then he had grown into man with broad shoulders and the kind of face that could make a girl's heart skip a beat.

The prince twists the rod again and with another yank her legs spread another foot until her hip joints protest the strain of it. On the outside, she's never had to worry about being limber, but here she's wondering how bad the pain could get if he spreads her further. Can she even do the splits without injuring herself?

"I _said…_ thank Lord Ral for his kind words," he clips, his voice filled with authority. "Ral is First among the Lords and should be treated with respect. And for future reference, Kryptonian, when he speaks, I speak. What he commands, I command. His…desires, are my desires. Are we clear…concubine?"

Kara's mouth goes dry, her eyes darting to Lord Ral, Mon-El's stepbrother and closest ally. If she wins this challenge, becoming the prince's Senya, this man will be given carte blanche access to her as well. The thought is terrifying, but there's something else there she hardly dares confess to herself, even to her darkest heart. It's exhilarating too, but she shoves that down, because girls like her, Kryptonian girls from good Kryptonian families, aren't titillated by the thought of being used as a fuck-toy. They just aren't, she tells herself, and their clutches don't grasp greedily at the notion, either. With an unsteady voice, she obeys the prince's command, "Thank you for your kind words, Lord Ral."

After Kara shows the respect Mon-El deems proper, he drops the bar and ambles over to the peg wall, his engorged penis dangling heavily, painfully between his legs as the Adept follows closely behind. Their heads move together into a huddle, like a sports team discussing the next plan of action.

"You're welcome, Kara," Ral answers graciously, drawing her attention away from her master. His lounge is closest to the bed – she notices for the first time – as though he's afforded the best seat in the house. So when he stands from his chair he need only take a few steps before sitting on the edge of the bed. Trailing his fingers down her arms, his knuckles come perilously close to caressing her breast, yet she doesn't shy away from him or feel disgusted by the thought of his touch, like she should. Like a good Kryptonian girl should. In fact, she's so horny she could almost…crave it, if she let herself. If her master allowed her. Placing an index finger beneath her chin he tilts her head upward until their gazes meet. "Do you wish to be plowed?" he inquires, loud enough for all to hear.

"Yes," she answers, as though she's drowning and Lord Ral offers her a life vest. Her breath trembles and she's almost on the verge of tears, sweat rolling down from her forehead into her hairline. "Yes, I want that…so much." Her response is met with applause from those audience members whose hands are still free for clapping. In the mirror, she can see that the silver-haired fox has now bent the young woman with long, luscious red tresses over the back of a lounger and fucks her slowly from behind, drawing out their pleasure by not rushing to the finish line. As if for Kara's benefits, the woman sighs happily each time he eases his cock into her and, predictably, Kara is awash in envy.

Wiping the sweat from her brow with a handkerchief, Ral leans closer and drops his voice to a whisper. "He'll have to do his best to break you before he finishes. Give them a good show," he informs her, a sadness filling his eyes as he cups her cheek with his hand, caressing the cheekbone with his thumb. "If he shows you mercy, any one of these idiots could run and tell the King, and that wouldn't go well for him or, I fear…for you. I'm the only one in this viper's nest he can trust. Do you understand?"

"Break me?" she whispers, a new shot of adrenaline pumping through her veins.

"You'll see, sunshine," he nods, more of a promise than a warning. "You've been so brave thus far…and so strong. It takes an enormous amount of courage simply to test your limits, let alone find them. Personally…I'm hoping you don't beg off. Many Adepts would have cried 'Mercy' at the quelling."

When Mon-El returns to the end of the bed, and Lord Ral shares a silent communication with him, the kind that springs from a life full of silent communications. Gracing her with a last gentle smile, he withdraws his hand and then leaning down, places a kiss on her forehead. Finally, he sighs, "Gods of Val-Or, what I wouldn't give to plunder your rim."

Not entirely certain what that means, Kara swallows and says, "Thank you for the compliment, Lord Ral."

"She does learn quickly, your little nestling," Ral says proudly.

"Senya, now," Mon-El revises, pointedly.

With that, Ral reaches for the rod between her ankles and, bending her body in half at the hips, pulls the bar over her head. Kara is upended, legs spread wide like a gymnast frozen in the midst of a flashy floor routine, her petals, thick with nectar to attract her mate, call out for him. Like he's done it a thousand times before, Ral locks the bar in place by clipping it to the large metal ring in the center of the patta'an hide strap that keeps the restraints anchored to the bed. Without tugging on the restraints, and thus causing them to react, Kara is able to extend her fingers enough to grasp her toes and the balls of her feet.

"Does that hurt, darling Kara?" Ral inquires sweetly.

"Yes," she nods, making an effort to breathe evenly in a slow pants to control the pain.

"Shall I loosen it for you?" he reaches for the anchor ring, his voice and eyes soft and kind.

Kara sees his question as a test, an offer to raise the white flag without consequences, barring a room full of disappointed audience members. Refusing to surrender (or disappoint her viewing public, if she's being honest), Kara shakes her head resolutely and answers, "No."

"Good answer," he sighs wistfully, trailing his knuckles lightly down the back of her calf, down to her knee, all the way to her hamstring. She shudders from the light touch, her attraction to him growing from the promise of gentleness he delivers. As if sensing this new wave of arousal his touch sparks in her, he leans down, his face inches from her cunt and breathes deeply. "Gods! I love the smell of a woman aroused," Ral comments before heading back to his chair. A murmur of agreement and approval arising in the room. Beyond her field of vision someone slaps a bare ass, and the recipient giggles.

"Thank you Lord Ral, for your compliment," Kara repeats, this time with a genuine, though quaky, smile through trembling lips. He responds with a wink as he drops gracefully into his chair and crosses his legs, settling himself like he's about to binge-watch Netflix.

"She's quite extraordinary when she comes," Mon-El announces to the room, "like the goddess Lure in the throes of passion. Would you like to see?"

The entire room seems to scramble for a better position from which to watch. Kara prays for his cock, but knows she won't get it. As he settles himself on the bed, he sits slightly off the side, so that the audience won't miss anything. Teasing her inner thighs with his hand, he comes within centimeters of her arousal a few times, practically purring with the glee of watching her body react to his movement. Her pelvis undulates as if by doing so she could draw his fingers into her wet heat.

"Please, oh please," she whines.

Taking pity on her, and because his cock, nearing its own limits, screams at him to move things along, he slides his middle finger into her wet heat. First one knuckle deep and then another, until finally its all the way in, her inner muscles clasping at him as though attempting to take his entire arm. "Hmm," he muses at the thought, withdrawing enough to add a second finger, this time his index finger, to the proceedings. "Someone needs to make a mess," he finishes, curling his fingers upwards until he finds the jewel of tissue, rough with clusters of nerve endings.

Wrists anchored to the floor and legs anchored to the bed, Kara is incapable of escaping the onslaught of sensation that besieges her when his fingers pumping in and out of her, particular about hitting that special spot that's like touching a live wire inside of her. Over and over he rubs against it, his hand soaked in her juices, until she feels that feeling like she's about to burst down below. As best as it can, her lower body attempts to curl in on itself, the contraction that comes before every supernova. " _Oh Rao!_ _Yesyesyesyesyesyes_ ," she chants until there's no more air left in her lungs for words. Her jaw slackens, her neck arching, but still she hovers on the precipice.

"Show them what a messy girl you are," he finally commands.

Nonsensical sounds issue from her mouth when she comes, squirting ambrosia upwards like a living fountain to the enthusiastic shouts of approval from the audience. With a few swipes of his hand across her labia, the prince coaxes another stream of liquid forth.

"Bravo," claps the conservative woman, the submissive between her thighs undeterred by the show behind him.

Her channel still occupied with release, Kara weeps with gratitude, her body now covered in sweat and her own ejaculate. Sniffing, she tucks her head into her shoulder and attempts to catch her breath.

Offering her no respite, Mon-El slides his fingers back into her soaking wet cunt, adding a third a finger this time, spreading them wide to test her stretch. Her inner muscles clamp down on them, but eventually begin to taper off and give way to this new invasion. Once her aftershocks end, he adds his pinky finger to the mix and slides them all in up to the last knuckle.

Surprised by the addition of the third finger and then the fourth, Kara pants harsh spurts of air as she watches what he's doing via the mirrors on the ceiling. When he withdraws just enough to tuck his thumb into his palm and press his hand back into her, she balks when she feels her body resist. "Master, I don't think—" she begins.

"If you can't take this, you won't be able to take my cock," he warns her. "Then I'll have to bend Lady Breck over right in front of you. Or perhaps I'll choose Lady Max after she's drained Sabin of all he has to give. Is that what you want, Kryptonian?"

"No! Please don't," she begs, shaking her head wildly. "I'll take it. I'll take anything." Laying her head down and closing her eyes, she makes a conscious mental effort to relax her inner muscles and make space for him.

Giving her only a few seconds to relax, he presses onward, twisting his hand back and forth, like opening a door knob, until finally his protruding knuckles pop into her and he's able to slide in up to his wrist, his hand being crushed by the tightness of her passage. It will be a testament to his prowess if he doesn't spurt like a schoolboy the moment he enters her. The audience, having gone breathlessly silent (but for a few pleasurable moans), cheers and hollers in celebration of this achievement. "Yes," the prince purrs. "That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

"Unh-unh," she replies, shaking her head. He's all the way inside of her up to the wrist and she can hardly believe it, her eyes widen with awe. She clenches her muscles around him as though trying to feel each individual finger.

"I didn't understand that, Kryptonian," he clips curtly, his eyebrows turning into an angry straight line. He withdraws his hand past the knuckles and then pushes back into her with another deep stretch and a squelchy pop.

"No, Master," she answers with a cringe as he stretches her core beyond anything she ever thought realistic. "It wasn't so bad." It stings and burns, but her level of personal lubricant assists as his full hand disappears inside of her for a fourth time.

"Gods, you are so naughty and eager…it feels like your cunt would swallow me whole if that were possible." With his unoccupied hand, he runs his thumb along his painfully sensitive penis. Stretched to the limit, the skin is shiny and thin, offering a view of the veins and the musculature running beneath, the color now that of a deep bruise. He has lengthened to an impressive length and girth such that his own hand is unable to close around its circumference. He doubts, if he demanded it now, that his Kryptonian captive could get much more than the head into her mouth.

He needs to come a lot to relieve the pressure, and he'll need to come soon.

This time when he pulls out his hand, he doesn't dive back in, but instead uses her juices to lubricate his phallus, giving her hope that finally she's soon going to feel that monstrosity pinioning her. Body tiring quickly, joints aching from the restraints, Kara has never felt more excited or needy…or alive.

Mon-El sidles up closer to her, sitting up on his knees. Restrained as she is, her rear-end is lifted slightly off the bed, putting some strain in her hips. He's about to add to it. Grasping the base of his elephantine cock, he smacks the monster against her clit, causing her hips to jerk and shimmy. "It is rumored that Lady Breck has had more than nine hundred lovers," he teases, "so don't you worry if you can't take it all. She's ready to offer her services in your stead."

"Like hell, Master," she grates out between clenched teeth.

"I do love her spirit, brother," Ral chimes in.

A sudden boldness streaking through her, she throws down the gauntlet, "Are you scared it will fit, Master, or scared it won't?"

The audience 'oooohs' and 'aaaahhhhs', taking note of the concubine's challenge.

The prince's smile morphs into a predatory grin. "My dear Kryptonian…when I'm done with you, you won't have the wherewithal to throw such gauntlets. Believe me…I will _make_ it fit."

"Prove it," she retorts.

Ral hoots and claps his hands.

The prince's eyes go nearly black with lust, as the look on her face challenges him. Pressing his lips together with determination, he nods and growls, "Just remember…you begged for it."


	8. Chapter 8

Warning: this story is not for the underaged, or for those who are squicked by non-vanilla sex. Heavy BDSM, sex toys, public sex, exhibitionism, voyeurism. Read at your own risk. Please read responsibility.  
Chapter 8/?

Her eyes widen as he maneuvers the tip of his englutted cock to her opening, her adrenaline spiking anew as she licks here lips in anticipation. Finally! It's larger even than his wrist now, closer to the size of his forearm; it's going to hurt, and she can't wait.

Why is she like this? Why does pain arouse her so deeply? Is it because, on the outside world, it's a stranger that visits so rarely and leaves no trace of its presence when it departs? Is it because, in her darkest moments of self-discovery, her empowered invulnerability sometimes causes her to question whether she is even a 'real person'? How can she be a real person when she is unable to experience the full range of human experience?

It began with small steps of discovery; a pull of her hair, a rough squeeze of her breast, the sharp sting of a palm on her ass, and she learns, with each new encounter, that the more pain he inflicts the more alive she feels. The more like a 'real girl' she becomes. Where is the limit? And between the two of them…who is the true deviant? She suspects it isn't Mon-El.

His little Kryptonian is here to be punished—deserves to be punished—and such chastisement precludes gentleness or any show of mercy. Unless she cries out for it, thus putting an end to her tribulation since the punishment can only go as far as she will allow. Should she cry mercy, her sentence will be commuted to banishment. Thus, Mon-El considers his plan of action as he gives his cock the barest taste of the wet heat that promises paradise.

But plunging into her is no simple matter when her sheath is so tight, and his steel is this large. At first, it will be like trying to stuff his meat into a closed fist, until her passage is able to adjust and mold around him. No matter her desires, or the clear level of arousal, her body will be unyielding when he enters her. This is not lovemaking, he reminds himself. Though the details are hazy to him now, he remembers he's meant to be driving her away. Showing her the worst of himself so she leaves this place. Gentleness has no place in these proceedings, as it might, were his partner an Adept on the verge of crying mercy.

His cock and balls scream at him. It is beyond time for teasing now. Instead it is time to punish her with more pain and more pleasure than she has ever borne before; for as long as his cock will hold out, or until she surrenders, whichever comes first. He will show her the beast he has inside, the one Father forced him to become, so that when she regains the strength he will take from her, she will run from the place without a backwards glance or a single regret.

"Impale her," Sabin grunts, as he does the same to the gasping, keening Lady Max bent over in front of him. Earlier he fucked her languorously, almost as if he was bored, but now his hips slap furiously against hers, a rich grunt rising from his chest with each unrelenting thrust.

"Impale her," concurs Commander-Lord Raines.

Mon-El positions himself carefully, one hand digging into the mattress just beneath her armpit, as the other plays guide to his penis. "You will take it all, Kryptonian," he demands. "Every last inch. Scream out all you like, if you must. There's only one word that can stop me now. Say the word, so that I know you know it."

"Mercy, Master," she pants out, her heart racing so fast it feels as though it will burst from her chest.

"You say it when you want this to end."

"Never," she shakes her head confidently, her voice steady for the first time since this began. "I will beg for your cock, and I will beg for you to fuck me, but I won't beg for you to stop. Not ever."

"We'll see," he replies, a part of him hoping she's right. But he's had a wide and varying education on the inflicting of pain, and the receiving of it. He stares into her eyes, wanting to see the reaction there when he impales her. Wants to see if the rabid sparkle there dims, or if it burns brighter. Mon-El takes a few slow and steady breaths, because he knows his own lungs will evacuate when he's surrounded, encased, in the tight fist of her cunt. Without a command, Kara finds his rhythm and matches her breathing tempo to his, finding it more soothing than the panting that leaves her lightheaded.

The moment their breathing synchronizes, Mon-El snaps his hips, putting the full force of his weight behind the thrust. He pushes past the resistance of her inner muscles that fight his invasion, until he's buried to the hilt, the tip of his cock touching the head of her womb. He's inside of her deeper than he's ever been before, the scorching heat of her and the impossibly tight grip she has on him combine to make him feel like climaxing before he's even put in the decent effort of a few pumps.

"Grrrggghhhhh," he groans above her, his entire body fighting off the urge to come. It's a good thing the device looped around his balls prevents it from being that easy. He'll have to work for it – each and every time. Until they're both exhausted.

It is exactly as he described it, the pain of his invasion stopping her lungs from working. She can neither take in air, nor expel what's trapped within. All she can do is gape like a landed fish, her eyes rolling back into her head. Just as promised, he's ripping her in two, sundering her with the python-like beast between his legs. Immediately, her body tries to reject him, to push him out, but her muscles in this place are no match for his strength, or the power he purposefully wields against her. Her eyes sting with tears, spilling down her temples in record time as she gulps at the burning pain of being so forcefully stretched, the bitter taste of adrenaline mixing with the saltiness in the back of her throat.

Without warning, and without permission, she climaxes; her toes curl and tear away from her fingers' grip as her whole world turns to blinding white light, her ears deaf to all but the pounding of her heartbeat. Her heels push upward, but her quivering legs are held fast by the thick ring to which the spreader is attached. So aroused by the searing pain and the masterful, remorseless manner in which he claims her, her body simply reacts in the only way it can. It's all she can do as her channel convulses around him, rippling ecstatically until she's certain this is how she will die, climaxing while her legs spasm uncontrollably in protest of their confinement. Jaw clenched as though her orgasm has extended all the way to her mouth, a primal scream is released through her gritted teeth.

When the world slowly fades back into focus, she hears the twitters and disapproving murmurs of the audience. Kara looks up at the prince, her master, eyelids blinking dreamingly as she brings him into focus. Too late, she realizes her mistake as she takes in the angry furrow between his hard, straight eyebrows. She can hear more than one observer tsking disapprovingly.

With a sound that resembles a mixture of a disappointed groan and an angry growl, Mon-El pulls out of her and sits back on his haunches. He would shove her away from him, were she not thoroughly held in place.

"Oh no," she weeps, the lump in her throat impossible to swallow around. "I didn't mean to. It just happened. It's just that you're so big…and the pain was so…right." His cock stretched her so wide and so painfully, yet his withdrawal brings her no relief, only an emptiness that is now greater than ever before. "It was an accident," she sobs, her voice begging for forgiveness. "Please don't be mad."

"'Don't be mad'," he mimics coldly. "'Don't be mad'?" Turning towards the audience he throws up his arms. "I think she wants me to be mad," he huffs, theatrically. "I think she wants me to turn into a rabid beast, provoked by her tiny acts of rebellion. Wouldn't you agree?"

The room fills with murmurs of agreement, and the sound of Kara's, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…."

"Some nestlings know, deep down, that they need more correction, more training, than others. They break the rules so that you're forced to be harder on them," Lord Raines points out, nodding sagely. "I would agree, Your Highness. This Kryptonian nestling is being difficult on purpose. The occasional challenge of tactics or treatment is one thing, and can even be fun, but she's flouting your authority, and that must not stand."

"Yes," the prince agrees, loftily. "That is why we are all here, after all, isn't it? To correct this Kryptonian for her misdeeds…and to show her who she truly is."

"Hear, hear," shouts a voice from the gallery.

No one defies him this way without facing consequences. No one. It matters not how beautiful or how eager they are. Arrogance rises up in him, shining forth in his eyes, and his lip curling upwards with a cruel twist. His shift in demeanor is subtle but obvious and it sends a shiver of prescience down Kara's spine straight to her core. Her mistake has opened the door to release something in him she's only caught glimpses of in the past. Something he keeps carefully controlled as though afraid it will frighten her away like a skittish little bunny.

He will offer no leniency now and she would have it no other way.

"It won't happen again, Master," she sniffles, offering him the emotional contrition the dominant side of him needs, whether he will accept it or not. "I promise."

His mind already formulating a plan, Mon-El climbs from the bed and stalks over to the peg wall, ignoring the aching pain between his legs as he removes a new implement from the wall. Rolling it in his palm, it is six shiny, metal spheres the size of ping-pong balls strung closely together. Yes, he will start with this; however, as his eyes scan numerous apparatuses on the wall, he knows it will only be the beginning and that this punishment will take its time playing out to the end. "I will show you a well of pleasure mixed with pain that will seem without end, but you will not take your pleasure without my explicit permission. Do I make myself clear, Kryptonian?"

"Yes, Master."

"I will exhaust you until you pass out," he promises her, his voice ominously low. "And then I will wake you and take you again with new purpose. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," she gasps, her lungs barely able to breathe from the thrill of it. Kara tells herself to be afraid, to fear what she doesn't know is coming, but her blood exchanges exhilaration for fright, like a case of mistaken identity.

"All you have to do is cry 'mercy' and everything will come to end," he reminds her.

At last it occurs to her just how high the stakes really are. To 'cry mercy' is not merely an admission of defeat in the bedroom, it is a white flag to their relationship. It is a word that will divorce them in his mind, and she knows that he's had every intention from the very beginning to force that word from her so that he can push her away. He simply hadn't expected her to withstand the presence of the audience, the breast torture, the quelling, the wrist restraints, the spreader bar, and the sheer colossal size of his cock. But she endures it all, blooming rather than withering as expected, bending against the force of his will instead of breaking, and in the process, learning more about who she truly is with each turn of the screw.

"No mercy," she insists. Her skin is soaked with sweat, reflecting the light, as the beads roll down into hidden crevices before finding their way to the velveteen bed covering beneath her. She is on fire, within and without. It's no surprise the room is like a hot box, with a total of 28 people, each generating their own heat, some just by their presence and others through their own carnal activities. As if reading her thoughts, the silver haired man finally lets the red-haired temptress climax, which she does with a mewling cry, her mouth shaped into an 'O', and her eyes rolling back into her head. He's not far behind, his entire body stiffening, throwing back his head as he shoots his load into her and yanking back on her hair as he does so. Noting that while that is all very titillating to watch, Kara believes it too tame for her liking. "No mercy," she reiterates, her voice strong and certain.

Mon-El, too, shines with sweat, finding the heat comforting like an old friend. He considers offering his captive a refreshing glass of Ankarian Ambrosia, but then decides it can wait. He wants to bring her closer to the brink of exhaustion before offering replenishment. Looking over her, from the foot of the bed, he holds up the implement for all too see. Murmurs of approval and a few conservative claps rise from the crowd. Tilting his head back, he makes a show of dropping the balls into his mouth, moving them about to lubricate them with his own saliva.

Climbing onto the mattress he considers the logistics, noting that this would be much easier if she were on her stomach, but that would have to wait until later. He can make this work with a little elbow grease. Drawing the large beads from his mouth, one at a time, he dangles them in front of her like a magician showing his cards before performing a disappearing trick. Explaining nothing, he uses his free hand to grab and massage one globe of her bruised backside. Pulling her cheek one side he holds the first bead up to the tight rim of muscles protecting her anus.

"Wait! What are you—"

"You're going to take these up your ass," he interrupts matter-of-factly. "Unless you'd rather cry mercy." After waiting a moment for her response, he tilts his head, "Hmmm?"

Kara locks her lips tight and shakes her head. They've never done anything like this, never even talked about it, but she's not about to cry mercy over something without at least trying it first. Not that she would ever cry mercy, even if she found her pain limit and he pushes her beyond. Even if he demands she spread her legs and take on everyone in the room. She will never give up on him.

With his thumb, Mon-El presses the first bead in, wedging it past the resistance. Accepting where this is will lead, Kara relaxes her anus allowing the second bead to pass more easily, followed by the third and then, in quick succession, the final three. Filled with a new sense of fullness, she clamps down her muscles on the beads, doing her best to wriggle her ass so that they will settle comfortably.

"So slutty," he comments, referring to her willingness and even eagerness to take something in the ass. The wedge itself was tight and he had to use some force to get the beads in, even after she relaxed for him. It occurs to him that he's being far too delicate in his references to her eagerness. She is a rare woman, especially for an off-worlder. There are many like her on Daxam, Lady Breck for example, born and bred here who know no different and are lucky enough to no know no censure. But for a girl like Kara, a good Kryptonian girl, her shame at learning and accepting her true nature, while celebrated here on Daxam, will surely make her think twice about making her life here. It's all in the cultural perspective, he realizes. But if he wants to push her away, he will need to strip away every ounce of what makes him a gentleman. He will need to cease being politick with her.

"Do you know what you are, Kryptonian?"

"No, Master," she replies, shaking her head.

"Someone who loves fucking more than breathing. Someone who can't get enough. Someone who'll beg for it every chance they get." A slow grin of wickedness spreading across his face, he says, "Such a lovely little whore you are, and now your gods-given compulsion is all mine to use as I will."

Kara knows what he's trying to do, that he's trying to drive her away with his words, his attempts at degradation, but in some ways, she feels as though she's growing closer to him than ever before. When he calls her a whore, something thrills inside of her, as if he's accepted her for everything that she is learning to be, and revels in it. She is a whore for him. If a whore is someone who refuses to put an arbitrary limit on his or her sexual experiences, based on what a given society tells them is acceptable, then she pleads guilty. She is taking the word and making herself powerful with it. Squeezing her anal muscles around the beads inside of her and celebrating the full sensation they provide, she gazes up her at her master, showing him her trust. "Thank you, Master."

"Bravo, Kara," Ral praises, clapping his hands. Mon-El shoots daggers at him with his eyes, but the blonde man merely shrugs and smiles. "One point to Kara, brother," he taunts, clearly indicating that he's on Kara's side. Ral wants her to stay, to reach Mon-El and take him from this place and for that, she will be forever grateful to this mental avatar.

"Thank you," she whispers, her throat grating with dryness.

"He thinks he's breaking you, Kara. He doesn't yet know how wrong he truly is."

"Shut up, Ral!" Mon-El commands. He's miscalculated her reaction to his attempts to earn her disdain…again, and the frustration grinds in his chest.

Spreading his hands out in mock surrender, Ral leans back into his chair, lacing his fingers together before resting his chin upon them, a smug expression on his face. He may have lost the battle, but the war is still in play.

Frustrated by the way Ral has sided with her, bolstered her while he's trying to secure her departure, Mon-El climbs atop her again, one hand on the mattress while the other aligns the head of his cock at her entrance once more, stuffing himself in about an inch deep. She hisses at the excruciating, ripping pleasure of his assault, and taking the hand from his shaft, he slaps her breast. "Do you like the way he looks at you, Kryptonian whore?" Another slap. "Do you? Tell me the truth or Lady Breck gets this cock."

Warring internally with the answer she _should_ provide and the one she knows is the truth, Kara presses her lips together to prevent any answers from slipping out unbidden. All she wants is for him to drive home like he did before, so deep into her core that he slammed the opening of her womb with a force that sent tendrils of pain shooting through her and sparking her forbidden orgasm. All she wants is that delicious feeling of being torn asunder by his bull-sized member. But instead of diving in deeper he pulls out again, scrambling from the bed. Tied down so completely as she is, Kara has no way to draw him back to her.

"My Lady Breck, pull up your dress and bend over the chair!" The entire room gasps, but the noblewoman does not hesitate to follow his command, ruching her short dress up to her breasts and bending over to grasp the arms of her plush chair. Spreading her legs as he sidles up behind her, he lines his cock up with her waiting clutch. Kara can only watch as Lady Breck prepares to steal what's hers. The usurping noblewoman turns her smug, smiling face towards Kara, and presses her hips back until her wet heat touches the head of his cock, licking her lips to add insult to injury.

"Yes!" Kara screams her confession, her breath catching as tears gather. "Yes, I like the way he looks at me."

The prince grabs the lady's hips, preparing to impale the eager warmth on his shaft – in fact, willing himself to do it, but finding himself unusually, incomprehensibly, reluctant. Kara pulls against her restraints which is mistake because they yank back at her until she feels as if her arms might dislocate. "Tell me…" he demands, the whole room holding its collective breath, "why do you like the way he looks at you, Kryptonian?" her prince demands.

"Because I'm a whore, Master," Kara confesses. "A thirsty little whore. _Your_ thirsty little whore."

At her admission, the prince steps away from the Lady Breck as though she's a bomb he's just defused, the noblewoman pouting at her missed opportunity. But before she can become too disappointed, Lord Raines steps up behind her, whips his sizable cock out of his linen pants and lines it up with her core. With a shrug of capitulation from the lady, he plunges in, his hips smacking against hers, both of their heads thrown back in ecstasy at his forcefulness.

"I'm a thirsty whore," Kara murmurs like a prayer, finding salvation in the word, instead of insult. The word is what she makes of it, she decides. It celebrates her right to pleasure, in any form she can get it, even if that means luxuriating in pain. "I'm a naughty whore."

"That's right, Pet," Mon-El encourages, wasting no time resuming his position between her legs. "And whores like it rough, don't they?" He's stuffing his cock into her again and she hisses at the hungry, gluttonous pain of it.

"Yes," she whimpers, as he stretches her entrance gloriously, her labia barely finding its way around the intruding shaft. "Whores like it rough."

"Whore don't want gentle," he says, smacking her breast.

"Whores don't want gentle," she echoes, shaking her head.

With that, he snaps his hips, his ass turning to stone as he pushes his way into her. She is even tighter this time, thanks in part to the anal beads – beads he can feel through the thin wall of muscle between her rectum and her clutch. So thin is the skin of his tortured cock, he can practically feel the coolness of the metal. His rod is so sensitive, as her inner walls suction around him to create an airtight seal. Mon-El briefly loses himself in the overpowering sensations of her heat. He accepts the pain of it, but revels in the carnal pleasure added by the pressure of her passage. "So tight," he groans. "Such a tight fucking hole for me."

"Thank you for your compliment, Master," she replies, her breath so shaky she can barely get the words out. He's so big he strokes every nerve ending in her channel, the head of his cock butting up against her cervix, adding a delicious blunt pain to the burning, stretching feeling. His pubic bone presses into her swollen, overstimulated clit. Her inner muscles clamp involuntarily and suddenly the fluttering begins.

"Don't you come, Pet," he commands, wedged so tightly inside of her he is unable to miss the signal of an approaching climax. He needs his own relief and she is yet to learn her lesson from the last time. Her hands fist in their restraints, the only thing she can do to ward off the impending release. Mon-El pulls out and snaps back in, entering harder this time than the first, burying himself to the hilt until he can feel his cock hitting the mouth of her womb.

"If you come…." he retreats again, and snaps back in like a rubber band pulled taut and then returning to its home position. His hips crash into hers with a grunt from both of them. "I will force you on your knees… _uunngghh_." Another retreat and plunge with a grunt. "Gag you…make you watch me...fuck every willing person…in this room."

With every broken phrase he leaves her, only to come back with rending force, and Kara happily takes every wide inch of it with a satisfied grunt. Along with his gigantic tool plunging in and out of her, she can feel her rectum clamping its muscles around the heavy, metal beads, adding to the riot of sensation in her body. Slamming her eyes closed, Kara tries not to think about how marvelous it all feels. "I won't," she promises frantically, unsure if she can even keep her word. "I won't come."

So tight is her cunt, he can only speed up marginally, finding his rhythm in slow withdrawals followed by brutal plunges back into her waiting, clasping heat. It suits him fine though, as the speed of his thrusts is less important than the force by which he takes her. He craves the sight of seeing her so powerless against his bombardment, but even more he loves the sight of her willingness to be so…for him.

"I won't come. I won't come. I won't come," she chants with each pillaging thrust as his sweat drips upon her chest, like the first fat drops of an anticipated rainstorm.

Each retreat is accompanied by the squelching sound of the breaking seal followed by the smack or their pelvises clashing, adding his grunts and her whines to the symphony of noises their bodies compose together. "Don't come," he commands, spanking her breast, and watching her skin flush a deeper red as she tries to hold back. For himself, the build of electricity begins at the base of his spine and wraps its way around his hips, snaking towards his thighs and then up to his balls until at last—

" _Uuunngghhh_ ," he groans, the muscles of his back seizing as he bathes her womb with his seed. The release of pressure is immediate as he spills into her, still stroking into her unrepentantly. " _Uuuunnnggghhhh_ ," he groans again, louder and more protracted this time as another stream escapes.

Still holding off her own pleasure as her master commands, Kara takes solace in observing the bliss on his face when he throws his head back and lets go, knowing that it is her gift to him. Just as he has given her a gift. She feels the wet gush of his spunk splashing against her womb, and gasps in joy, recalling what it felt like the one time it happened in the outside world. When the second splash hits her cervix, she closes her own eyes to float on the bliss of it, wishing she could lock her legs around his waist and hold him inside, so that none could escape. After his climax, she seems confused when he stays buried inside of her, his dick still as hard as granite.

"The device I wear will keep me hard for hours, remember?" he explains. "I would expect no rest for a while if I were you." His climax, the first of an untold number, helped relieve his hot need for a few moments, giving him that blissful white-out for two seconds, but no sooner has the white-out cleared than the pressure builds again, hotter and needier than ever.

And that's how the Callus Band works, building a man's need until the wearer loses all sense and knows only the drive to fuck like an animal, until the body is simply worn out. "I'm going to fill you with my seed until it's spilling out of you. Dripping down your legs for days," he says, though whether he's warning her or making a vow to her, even he is unable to discern.

"Yes," she consents with the sigh. "Fill me up, Master."

Unlocking his elbows, he drops down to his forearms, his knees digging into the mattress as he rocks his pubic bone against hers. Kara whines as his pelvis places more pressure on her already strained hip joints. The pain is present but overwritten by the pleasure of his cock buried inside of her, the sensation of his sweat covered stomach now rocking against hers, and his pubic bone bearing down on her clit. Determining that this position offers him ample leverage and range of motion for his pelvis, he draws back and resumes the punishing pistoning of his cock.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" chants the crowd. Commander-Lord Raines himself picks up the tempo of the chants, pillaging Lady Breck to the accompaniment of her pleasure sounds. Her lady-like whimpers are far more delicate than the primal grunts coming from the prince's Kryptonian whore.

Mon-El picks of his pace, digging his hands under her head to grip at the hair on her scalp, tugging at it until her neck bows backward. It is soaking wet with perspiration. He covers her mouth with his to briefly taste the sound of her pleasure.

" _Unngghh…uunngghh…uunngghh_ …." She grunts with each snap of his hips against her pelvis, each deep plunge of his skilled penis. He commands her with it – rules her until she knows that it owns her. " _RaoRaoRaoRao_ …." She chants on each harsh breath that exits her lungs when she finds her words. " _Don't stop, don't stop, never stop!"_

"I told you, you would beg me never to stop," he grimaces, barely hanging onto his sanity as he buries himself impossibly deep over and over again. "I'm going to fill you up again soon," he vows, already feeling the pressure in his balls and at the base of his spine reach a peak. He tucks his head into her shoulder and growls, "And you're going to beg me for more."

" _Uunnnggghhh_ …so…good…Master," she whines in his ear, as he hammers her passage. Without a doubt her thighs will be bruised, but that will be something to admire in the mirror later. Reminded of the mirror, Kara gasps and looks up at the ceiling, watching over his shoulder as the muscles of his ass bunch and release, bunch and release, as he fucks her. The view of his broad, toned back, the muscles slithering under his skin like snakes in a tight bag, is a work of art that she wants to burn into her brain. If her hands were free, she would have them on his ass, encouraging him to go harder, go faster. When she gets him into the outside world, they are having a mirror installed in the ceiling of her loft so she can always watch him fuck her.

He stiffens above her, a second release upon him. He growls into her ear as his entire body goes rock hard, gripping her hair until it feels as though he will tear it from her scalp. "Fuuuuuuuck!" he groans just as she feels his hot spunk flood the mouth of her womb again.

"Please," she whines, his release scorching her. "I need more, Master…give me more of your hot cum," she pleads, just as he demanded, and happy to do so if it pleases him. But also because the feeling of his ejaculate jetting into her fills her with a happiness she can't explain.

With another withdrawal and relentless drive back into her increasingly wet haven he bestows more of his seed upon her, sensing it eject so forcefully he feels a full moment of relief before the pressure begins to build again. He loves to hear her beg for more. More of his cock and more of his cum – more speed and harder, harder, harder. Loves that mewling, baby-girl beg mixed with those deep grunts when the head of his cock butts against her cervix. "I'll let you come next time…for being such an obedient pet," he says, like the benevolent ruler he is.

"Thank you," she sniffles, tension releasing the only way it's allowed. "You're so good to me."

"But you have to talk dirty," he qualifies, placing her on the spot, as his hips begin rocking again. Slowly he works his way up to the ravishing rhythm that he knows will give them both what they need.

"Fuck my hole, Master," she begins, unsure. "Your cock is so big, stretching me so tight and hitting me so deep."

As if to prove her right, he pulls out all the way out and slams back in, balls deep, his eyes closing at the euphoria of it, until he can feel the end of her passage with his hypersensitive glans. She squeals in response, turning her head to bite the fleshy bit of her bicep as her back arches, her now-idle nipple clamps scraping against his pectorals. "You like that?" he asks, already knowing the answer.

"I love it, Master," she replies, when she catches her breath. He continues pulsing into her, rhythm matching the heavy heartbeat that pounds in her ears. " _Uunngghh_ …I love it when you… _uunngghh_ …take me rough." With the exception of her cunt, Kara's whole body goes limp as he hammers her. Tension inside of her ratcheting up until it is nearly beyond bearable, she scrambles for dirty things to say when it's impossible to think clearly the way his cock works her. His hips add a little twist with each thrust, ensuring that his pubic bone compresses her enflamed clit. "When you come…you," her grunts change to keens as each hip twist tweaks her clit, " _yeah_ …you squirt inside of me… _oh, yeah_ …and I want to come when you come… _aaahh_ …so I can suck it all up… _eh-eh-eh_ -every single drop. I… _yeah_ …want your princely cum inside me."

Loving the sound of the grunts she can't hold back each time he slams into her until their pelvises clash, Mon-El returns to his more severe rhythm, picking up his pace slightly, so he can hear them more often. "When you… _unngh, fuck_ …pull my hair… _unngh_ …while you fuck me… _oh, yeah_ …I get all wet… _unngh_ …like a dirty girl."

"Do you?" he growls, possessively driving back into her after slowly pulling out. Her sweat-soaked hair now remembered, he grips at it more tightly until she purrs like a kitten. "How about that?"

Her inner walls clasp at him as she feels a new rush of wetness in response to his dominance. "Own my pussy, Master," she whines, using a new dirty word that she hopes will earn her points. It's a word that naughty girls like herself and benevolent masters like her prince use. "My pussy is yours, Master. Fuck my tight pussy. Put your cum in my pussy until it's spilling out of me."

Whispers of the word 'pussy' spread amongst the observers, the room soon making a murmuring hissing sound as though someone has let loose a bag of snakes. It is determined that the word is acceptable, when the conservative Lady in the navy dress tells her concubinus to, "Lick that pussy."

Entranced by her swollen, jolting breasts, he leans down and takes the chains binding the nipple clamps together in between his teeth. Holding the chains, the clamps tug roughly on her sore nipples as he ruts in and out of her.

"Aaahhhhggghh," she reacts to the pain shooting from her nipples straight to her sopping wet, battered core, the air sucked from her lungs. When the air returns, she murmurs, "You know how to hurt me just right, Master. Wreck me. Wreck all of me."

Gripping the chain between his teeth, he jerks his head savagely, winning another satisfying shout of pain.

Pushed closer to the forbidden edge by his ferocious treatment of her breasts, Kara pants frantically, bursting into tears as cathartic emotion overwhelms her. She's on the verge of her climax and even worse…she can feel the now recognizable pressure that tells her she's going to squirt – to add insult to injury. "Oh, no!" she cries, speaking through gritted teeth in hopes of holding off the tide that threatens to swamp her. "It's happening. It's happening. Please let me come," she pleads. "Please? I want to come around your monster cock, Master," she adds, hoping a little last second filthiness will sway his decision.

And it does, but only because he's on the verge as well. Slackening his mouth's hold on the chains, he blindly fumbles beneath his balls until he finds the thick string protruding from her anus. He withdraws from her heat twice more, thrusting back in to the hilt each time and tightening his hold on the chains in his mouth until her pert breasts are pulled taut. "Come for your master!" he demands, between his teeth.

Just like that, she goes off, her inner muscles clamping around him like an iron fist, her back arching, her feet pressing up toward the ceiling. "Rao!" she screams. "Oh, Master! Oh, God… _fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck_!"

When her climax reaches its apex and heads on its downward slide, Mon-El tugs on the anal beads, popping each out one at a time in quick succession. The sensation is enough to have her coming again, the sound of her harsh, raspy breath filling the room. He blindly tosses the beads as he continues pumping into her, cramming his cock past the cramping, rippling muscles of her pussy that feels like it will kill him with pleasure. He wraps the fingers of one hand around her throat, using his thumb to depress her carotid artery, stifling the blood flowing to her brain.

The combination of removing the beads and the trust in her eyes when he cuts off her blood supply are enough to help him detonate as well. Mon-El withdraws and drives back in, urging his cock to commence the discharge of his 'princely cum' into her. "Take it," he growls, throwing his head back like a beast about to howl, thrusting vigorously he recoils halfway and ruts again, until he can feel the barrier against the tip of his spear, "like the Kryptonian whore you truly are." He works her hard, labors over her body and inside of her, as it becomes more and more difficult to climax with each effort. "Take. My. Cum," he growls.

"Take it…take it…take it," chants the room in a low murmur.

"Yes," Kara nods, her eyes bright with a near madness, as though the need for his seed has driven her crazy. "Give it to me, Master," she rasps against his grip on her throat. "Give it all."

"Here it comes," he groans, pumping in and out. "Gods, here it comes!" When at last his need to explode engulfs him, his entire body changes to stone, mouth opening wide in expected shock. The pleasure burns through the base of his spine and then squeezes his testicles until the thick, milky white fluid finally gushes forth, into her. As he comes, his ass and abs tighten spasmodically, fitfully, with each gush of his release, as though his cock is trying to dig deeper into her, perhaps to crawl inside her womb. Feeling the splash of his hot cum against her insides once again sets off another, smaller orgasm, allowing the rippling of her inner walls to drink him in like the thirsty wanton she is, just as she had hoped.

When the pressure in his balls is relieved, albeit momentarily, Mon-El releases his grip on her neck and sighs a deep, cleansing sigh before sitting up and pulling out of her. Still his greedy little captive, she protests their separation, tucking her head into her arm and pouting. White milky cream attempts to escape her passage, and the sight of it, proof of his mastery, earns a light applause from the audience.

"Well done, my prince," Lady Breck praises, coincidentally using a handkerchief handed to her by a servant to clean the mess between her legs left behind by Commander-Lord Raines. None the worse for wear, she appears to be a well-satisfied woman. A servant approaches the bed and offers the prince a handkerchief as well, but he waves the young man away; no intention of cleaning his seed from his concubine, when he fully intends to make her filthy with it.

"Well done," agrees the red-haired vixen dreamily, who's already moved on to another partner, and is sitting atop the lap of the man with lavender eyes, riding his substantial cock. "So much Milk of Val-or," she muses, as though on a mission to obtain as much as she can. "Don't spill a drop," she warns, her hips undulating gently on her current lover's lap, as his hands cup and squeeze her generous breasts from behind. "It's bad luck to spill the royal Milk of Val-or."

"Lady Max is what we call a "Milk Maid'," Mon-El explains in a raspy voice. "Though the term is a bit of an ironic misnomer. It's her mission to take in as much of a man's semen as she can. Followers of the old tenets of Lure believe that hoarding a man's semen will keep a woman youthful and desirable." With two fingers, he guides a milky glob of his cum back into Kara's hungry pussy, the aftershocks of her orgasms clutching at the digits. "Not that you need it, Pet," he tells her. Leaning down, he licks a wide swath of her labia with his flattened tongue, circling around her hole before flicking her clit with the tip. Pursing his lips, the prince sucks her swollen bundle of nerves into his mouth and takes a few draws on it, varying the intensity while listening to the sound of his pet struggling for the air to breathe, her thighs quaking with the unquenchable need to close around his head.


	9. Chapter 9

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: This story contains strong elements of kinky, BDSM sex. Please read responsibly!

Chapter 9/?

Mon-El's brief respite from need ends abruptly, his cock screaming at him once more, nearly driving him to madness, making him a match for the shining mania he sees in his captive's eyes. Anxious for another position, he calls out the motto of House Gand, "Into the Fray, Unflinching," loud enough to be heard.

The locks on the restraints are cued to a voice command and pass code. With a nearly imperceptible hiss and a clink, her wrists are freed from the restraints and the middle ring holding the spreader pops open, allowing her body to unfold and her legs to flop back down on the bed. Even the loops around her ankles loosen so that the prince can easily remove the spreader bar and hand it off to the attending Adept.

Freed from their fatiguing position, her hip and shoulder joints ache from the strain of being jerked taut, but that doesn't hamper the arousal that seems impossibly undiminished despite several orgasms. Exhausted, she could use a rest, but isn't about to deny him when he comes at her, a slightly unhinged sparkle in his eye. Her legs tingle like hot needles pricking her nerves as the blood rushes back into places where its supply was crimped in her flaunted position.

Though she wouldn't if she could, Kara is unable to assist as Mon-El sweeps up her legs and places them against his shoulder, resting them against his broad, sweaty chest. Settling back on his heels, his knees spread wide around her ass, he uses one hand to align his massive and gluttonous meat. Clamping his free arm around her knees to hold her in place, he takes her again in one swift thrust, a feral gleam of victory in his nearly black eyes.

"Ungh," she grunts in response to his invasion.

"I know you like that, Pet," he hisses, the grip of her tight passage almost more pleasure than he can bear. "You like it when I just take you like a beast. Isn't that right?"

In the end, when it comes to sex, they are all just animals, creatures who boil down to their need to breed and perpetuate, and for humanoid species it's made all the more primal by the consuming pursuit of pleasure. As she takes him in deep, reveling in how tender her pussy feels each time he enters her anew, Kara finally accepts this about herself, and about him. They are all just beasts, driven by their biological imperatives: fuck and breed, domination and submission, pleasure and plain, possession and surrender. Daxamites are… _were_ …smart enough to realize and accept this, while Kryptonians buried themselves in science and exploration to suppress these imperatives. Eschewing the Kryptonian philosophies about sex, she resolves to embrace the Daxamite ideology instead, vowing to _never_ suppress her primal urges again. It is a dogma better to suited to her needs anyway.

"Unh-huh," she agrees in a moan, her flesh trembling beneath the force of his thrusts. She feels, for the first time in her life, free of the expectations her people placed on her, as though she's becoming the person she was always meant to be. Liberation through bondage.

A hard smack on her flank accompanies his next jolt of her cervix. "Speak when I ask you a question!" he commands.

"Yes," she pants, the tension in her pussy winding up as his colossal cock stimulates and works every nerve in her cunt. She's so tender and she begs for more, using the voice of a submissive who would never dare exert authority. "I like it…when you take me like a beast," she confesses in a breathy rush, as though she is afraid she won't get it out before…. " _Yeah…yeah…oh yeah…yes, Master!_ _Fuck me harder_!" He rewards her with another smack on her flank and she tries to suppress her smile by biting on her lower lip, but fails miserably.

Immobile with fatigue, Kara wonders how much more of this she can take. Like his cock, her libido is a voracious monster, unhindered by the weakening of her mortal flesh which limits her here. Sweat rolling down her body, hair soaked in it, her mouth is dry from the overwhelming heat of the crowd in close quarters and the vigorous activities she's perpetrated and that have been perpetrated upon her.

"Give me your hands," he orders, letting go of her knees and reaching out for her.

Kara lifts her shoulders and head from the mattress, shifting his angle of entry slightly, causing her to gasp at the intensified pleasure. She places her hands in his, but he fumbles around her fingers until he finds the purchase he truly wants, her forearms. Before, he was holding her secure as she serviced him, but now, using her arms for leverage, the prince wrenches Kara's body toward him as he drives into her.

" _Fuckfuckfuckfuck_!" she screams.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" their observers mimic.

"Don't you dare come!" he threatens, torturing his balls by slapping them as hard as he can against her ass. "I am your master and you will not come!"

Kara thinks he cannot be fucking her harder – it must be impossible – but then, as if to prove his power, he shifts his angle slightly upward and digs even deeper.

Finally, his cock gets what it needs from her, or perhaps his balls have had enough of the torture of being pinned between their bodies, and he feels his release rise up and jet out. "Put my cum in you so deep," he growls, just as his entire body seizes, the muscles of his ass and back going rock hard as he shoots another load into her.

" _Yeah…yeah…oh, yeah,"_ she encourages, egging his orgasm to greater heights. "Come in me. Keep coming…."

" _Aaahhhggghhhh_!" he throws his head back, baying like the beast he's becoming. " _Uunngghh…uunngh…uunggh_ ," he grunts three more times. Three more brutish thrusts, each leaving her with more of himself. Light-headed with the effort and the flood of chemicals to his brain, his mind is vacant of all but the neurons lighting up his pleasure center.

Watching him come, each time is more barbarous than the last as though he's stripping away the layers that make him civilized, reminds Kara that he is her mate. He is the man she wanted to see as the intimacy of their relationship deepened, the man he has been afraid to show her all along. In the aftermath of his detonation, audience forgotten in the stillness broken only by the heaving of his chest and the harsh breaths that fill the air between them, she whispers, "I was made for you…can't you feel it?"

Mon-El tries hard not to look at her face, but the way her blue-black eyes droop sleepily, on the verge of losing consciousness, draws him in. Her mouth smiling that sweet smile of gratification he knows he's seen before but can't recall where when he's in this place. A pang in his heart almost makes him forget the mission he set for himself; to send her away, regretting only having met him in the first place. Almost.

There's still time to wring the word from her. He has exhausted his little pet, fucked her raw nearly to the point of unconsciousness, and he will continue until he can go no further. He begins moving again, before his balls even have a chance to make demands of him this time. He is no smaller, no shorter and no less hard than he was the first time he came in her, nor will he be until this is over. When he hovers on the brink of exhaustion, the device twisting into his cock and balls will disengage automatically (as a safety measure) and he will be free. Until then, he must continue fucking.

Letting go of her arms, Mon-El repositions her legs, turning her on her side, still pinioned on his dick. Digging deep to find the energy, Kara rolls her upper body until she's nestled in a fetal position, gripping the gray velveteen bed cover in both fists. She closes her eyes for a moment allowing herself to enjoy the myriad sensations that flow through her like a river; the exhaustion, the repletion, the sweet sting of the rawness so deep inside, the incessant pulse of her clit and, of course, the fullness of his cock invading her.

Mon-El leans over her, balancing himself on one hand, placed beside her tits. The other hand delves into her wet hair which he clenches fiercely, noting the upturn of her lips when he does.

" _Yeah…yeah…yeah…yeah_ ," she keens wearily, as he tortures her over and over with his achingly slow and shallow pattern of advance and retreat. The words come from somewhere unknown to her, as if by instinct; she's hardly aware of her own effort to say them. Her tongue snakes out to moisten cracking lips as she opens her eyes. Her eyes cast about the room as he looms over her, utterly focused on wetting his cock all the way to another orgasm.

As surprised as she is to discover she enjoys being observed and even commented on while having sex, Kara is equally shocked to realize she loves observing others while in the throes. Commander-Lord Raines, now completely naked, is having his turn at Lady Max, the stunning red-head. He's pinned her against the mirror and is driving up and up into her without the slightest attempt at gentleness, his massive hands gripping her ass to hold her in place. Petite in comparison to the hulking Raines, he holds her up easily, her calves resting on his shoulders as he pounds into her. In ecstasy, her head is thrown back as far as the mirror will allow, giving him the clearance he needs to suck ravenously at her bouncing breast.

The dark woman with skin like it's been brushed with silver reclines on her lounge, a head buried between her legs, a head with a distinctive blonde pixie cut. Straddling the dark woman's torso and kneeling on the cushion in front of her head is the man with lavender eyes, carefully fucking her mouth, his hands petting her head. One of her hands grips urgently at a cheek of his ass, while the other pumps the cock of an olive-skinned man with dark hair and a closely trimmed goatee. When he licks his lips, Kara catches sight of shiny metal, the ball of a piercing on the tip of his tongue.

Reflected in the mirror, she sees the male concubine has switched partners, apparently at his mistress's behest, and pays homage to the portly man's cock while he, in turn, messily and noisily suckles the breast of the concubine's mistress as she kneels on the lounge beside him, his fat, bejeweled fingers buried in her pussy.

After a moment, Lord Mos brushes away the concubinus on his dick, and pulls the woman into his lap as he slides down further into his chair, making more room for the woman to maneuver. The Mistress, Lady Yar, straddles Lord Mos and sinks down on his rigid cock while he places his hands firmly on her hips, chortling something about how it 'feels like old times'. Leaning forward, she grasps the back of the lounge, then turns her head to toss a pointed look at the man waiting to take his turn. When she nods at him, he snuggles up behind her and spreads her ass cheeks wide. The reflection in the mirror doesn't afford Kara the best view, but she knows exactly when the concubinus rams his cock home, based on the arching back, the thrown back head, and the long, deep groan from his mistress. Kara's cunt, already filled with her master's enormous cock, still ripples with envy.

It seems that all the observers have found their own libidos of more interest for the time being, with the exception of Lord Ral, who only has eyes for her. He lounges lazily in his circular chair - which appears all the larger for his being alone – his arms spread casually along the chair back as if he is the king of all that he surveys, including her. He doesn't even try to hide, or touch, the prominent erection tenting his linen pants. Their eyes meet, and they smile at one another.

Bothered by her silence, except for the tiny sounds she's clearly not even aware that she's making, Mon-El stops fucking her. Leaving his cock buried to the hilt in her heat, he leans down close to her face, hot breath tickling her ear and then whispers, "I want to watch you fuck him."

"W-What?" she asks, not sure she's heard him correctly.

"And who knows?" he continues, with a cocky smile. "Maybe I will get my chance. Even if I lose this challenge, with you as my concubine – every day is a brand-new opportunity to win."

Leaving her speechless, and concerned about where his thoughts are leading, Mon-El changes their position again. Lifting her outside leg he props it back on his opposite shoulder. Reaching between them, he grabs for the nipple clamp chain and gives it a warning tug to secure her attention. The next time he pulls on the chain, he forces her upper body up from the bed, until she's propped up on her elbows.

Looking down between their bodies, Mon-El watches as he slowly pulls out, her muscles gripping tenaciously at his dick in protest of its departure, then sinking slowly back in before they can have a chance to relax. His jaw ticks, gritting his teeth together to contain the euphoria as he does it again. And again. Over and over he watches his slick, shiny cock disappear inside of her, hypnotized by it. She may feel well used, but she continues to produce new lubrication for him and though rapturously snug, he doesn't have to force his way in anymore. "Your pussy knows who I am now," he says, his voice self-satisfied and authoritative. "Feel how it welcomes me in like its master and then begs me not to leave.

"And it always will," she replies, tilting her hips up to take him in with each thrust.

"Touch yourself, Pet," the prince instructs, as he molds one ass cheek to his hand.

Forced to prop up on one elbow she cups her breast.

"Touch your clit," he corrects, spanking her ass.

Sliding her hand down her sweaty belly, she places two fingers at the apex of her widened slit. It doesn't take much flicking or rubbing. He speeds his pace, beginning the chase for his next climax, and his pubic bone crushes indelicately against her fingers, which in turn stimulates her clit. Both exhausted, it takes a little more effort and encouragement from voices in the crowd.

"So good," she whines as he speeds his pace, losing his smooth rhythm as he ruts more and more erratically. "So good, Master."

His testicles, growing more and more insistent in their need for priming, demand that she service his cock for long minutes as he climbs the mountain to release at a snail's pace, though his hips move significantly faster than that. "Grip me with your pussy," he demands, and when she complies he growls, "Harder!" She breathes as deeply as their activity will allow and bears down upon him as though attempting to repel its invasion, screaming between clenched teeth at the effort. When her excruciatingly tight clutch relaxes just as he verges upon the sweet buzz of impending climax, the prince reaches forward and pulls the chain binding her nipples and demands, "Again!" Another marginally deep breath and she bears down with a clenched scream, clamping her inner muscles as though trying to squeeze him out, the way she might try to birth an infant. But he fights back against her efforts, shoving past the muscles he stirred to opposition. Quickening at last, he drops her leg and leans forward into the cradle of her hips as he ruts frantically, his orgasm nearly upon him. "Come with me, Pet," he allows, her new nickname sounding almost affectionate on his lips.

"Yes, Master," she whimpers, her pleasure and exhaustion both acute.

"Look at yourself," he commands, grabbing her chin and forcing her head to turn until it she can watch him fucking her enervated body in the wall mirror. "Look at how you take it and take it. You're a slut for my cum, aren't you?"

"Uh-huh," she whimpers, earning rough fingers on her chin and a series of even rougher thrusts into her cunt. Understanding the unspoken message, she course-corrects, "I'm a slut… _uuunngghh_ …for your cum, Master. I can't…ge-ehh-et enough," she pants, not a single word of it a lie, or a ruse to earn his good will.

Then it's like a mania comes over him – a furor – red seeping into the outskirts of his vision as she becomes more than just a pet, but a vessel for his seed. For his science-given ability to give life. Managing to override the furious need, he slows his thrusts, rutting only as much as he must while telling her what his lizard brain demands of him. "You'll be my vessel," he tells her. "I'm going to put it in you over and over," he grates, leaning down to lick the shiny sweat from her face with a wide swath of his tongue. She turns her head to open her mouth and for a moment their tongues dance an erotic rhythm together before he pulls away. "You will take it and take it all."

"I will," she whines desperately, the command in his tone sending a shiver down her spine. Her face growing bright red as she grows closer and closer to her climax.

"I'm going to breed you… _fuck_!" he pulls back and plunges back in, this time holding his climax at bay instead of giving into it, "...until you carry my scion."

"Oh, yes!" she cries, a stone rising in her throat, eyes welling with tears. She wants it. Wants it so bad, but knows it can never happen in this place, because none of this is even real.

Drawing back, he dives into her searing heat with a groan. "Would you like that, huh?"

"Yes, Master, please!" She breaks, sobbing her heart out.

He stops and pulls out of her, to the sound of her verbal protest. Arms shaking, his back quivering, he observes the heartbreak and hope that spills forth from her, and finds it satisfying. She will do anything for him, including be his vessel. Mon-El smacks his cock against her tummy, between her mons and belly button, getting her sticky with the mixture of their juices. "I'm going to watch your belly swell with my seed and then parade you through the streets of Capital City for all to see. And when you spill out our progeny from between your legs, I will put another one into you." Placing his cock at her entrance, he shoves into her with a satisfying grunt, then draws back, and with a tightening of his ass he surges back into the field he's desperate to plant. "And another," he adds, rutting again and then withdrawing. He's lost in the idea, gleeful at the thought of how furious the king would be if he filled a Kryptonian concubine with his get. "And another," he plunges. "And on and on, until my progeny is legion, my genetic line unbreakable."

It will happen because his lizard brain demands that he make it so…or die.

Apart from the urgent fucking on the bed, a strange stillness comes over the room, as if the observers have recognized something happening unlike anything they've ever witnessed. "Breed her, breed her, breed her," they chant quietly in unison, the words taking on an almost religious meaning. Natural birth is a myth on Daxam, an event only whispered about.

Legs utterly useless, Kara lifts her arms, her hands finding purchase first in the sweaty strands of his hair, before sliding down to grip the rippling muscles of his back. Lifting her head, she looks down between their bodies to watch as he surges into her, finding the strength to spread her weary legs farther apart. Her own approaching climax draws like a bow string, cranking tighter with each surge, each crash of his pelvis into hers, each slap of his balls against the crease of her ass. "Oh, God!" she sobs as it strikes like lightening, her spine bowing, her nails digging into the undulating muscles of his back hard enough to tear skin away. "Come in me, come in me, come in me," she sobs deliriously, her breath stumbling as she hyperventilates on her tears.

Nothing has ever set him off like her plea for his cum – the way she weeps for it – so when her pussy implodes, alternating between fisting and conceding around his penis, he gives it to her with gusto.

His need to breed her is beyond primitive, it is primordial, the maddening of it overriding all good sense (and any plan to make her depart), while his guiding organ takes the lead. When his body stiffens, his back arches as he drives into her deep. Sliding her hands down, she grasps his ass, holding him in place with the last of the strength her exhausted body can muster. " _Come in me,_ " she begs again, just a whimper on dry lips now, the last of her hydration streaming down her face.

Jets of his hot seed slice through her womb and the feel of the gush and the thought of it filling her up has her toes curling, her knees locking, and another wave of unexpected pleasure pulsating through her core. "Master!" she gasps, her god all but forgotten, her throat so dry she's barely audible. It's not her most powerful orgasm by far, but it's the straw that breaks the camel's back. Darkness invades her vision, shrinking the world down to a pinhole of light which flickers briefly and then goes black, and her head lolls listlessly to one side before the flutters of her climax can even fade away.

A strange thrill goes through him as he watches her lose consciousness, having now figuratively 'fucked her brains out'. His mania reaching peak, he finishes inside of her with two more sharp thrusts, the furor draining away with the final spray of his seed, his eyes closing in relief. Reluctantly, Mon-El pulls out of her still clutching heat and collapses half on her and half on the bed. When she doesn't awaken immediately, he rolls over onto his back, taking a moment to enjoy the thoroughly used up picture they make in the reflection above them.

Splayed on the bed, her legs wide open, hands limp at her sides and utterly unaware of the world around her, he considers his next move. It's a struggle to think clearly, the perpetual arousal of his cock quickly bringing him closer to the edge of madness with each climax. His frenzy to breed her, though controllable for the moment, is an urge that whispers into his ear like a regret that can't be purged. 'Breed-delirium', a rare side effect of using the Band, is clearly upon him, which usually indicates a change in brain chemistry – one that the Callus Band's fail safes should read as exhaustion.

Mon-El lifts his head and stares at his cock, waiting for the Callus Band to go dark and then disengage, but instead of the lighted filament fading and the pop that happens when the device unlocks, he feels his urge rise again. "You've got to be kidding me," he sighs, his head falling back on the bed. Heat floods him and he fists his hands until his knuckles turn white, resisting the hissing lizard in his brain that tells him he must roll back on top of her and fuck her unconscious body. She won't mind, it tells him. Though he knows little about his eager and tenacious Kryptonian concubine, he senses that she'd be angry only that she missed it and would find a way to make him pay for it later. He manages to shove his lizard brain to the side and see the bigger picture.

Ultimately, the deciding factor is that the Kryptonian can't cry mercy if she's unconscious and fucking her in this state would only weaken his position, not hers.

He struggles to sit and slides to the end of the bed. The Adept, whose name he can't recall, if indeed he ever bothered to learn it, stands at the ready, her teal colored gown so transparent it reveals the medium size breasts with wide areolae and a plump, hairless vulva, kept smooth like a baby's behind. She hands him a wet cloth for cleaning his cock, which he accepts wearily and prepares to set to the task, but first he looks up at the Adept and orders, "Wake her."

"Yes, Your Highness," she curtsies.


	10. Chapter 10

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: PLEASE READ RESPONSIBILY! Warning: there are passing mentions of adult/underage sex in this chapter. The consenting age on Daxam is 15.

Chapter 10/?

After cleaning his member and tossing the cloth on the platform for later retrieval he snaps his fingers, calling the trolling servant carrying a tray of wine goblets. When the man nears, Mon-El swipes a chalice and drains it in a single breath, exchanging it for a second. Thankfully, it's an elixir of restorative properties often used at Lurien festivals.

"When she wakes, offer her something to eat and drink, this restorative will suffice, as well as a branch of alm berries with sweet zabat to cut the bitterness and…is there grilled pylar flank available?" Mon-El places his second chalice of restorative back on the tray.

"Of course, Your Highness," the man eagerly replies. "It's excellent for boosting strength without creating an unpleasant aroma to the breath. It's a staple for these events."

"Bring her a few strips of flank. But not too much. I wish her to be energized…not weighed down by a fondness for food and drink. The only thing I want her gluttonous for is me."

"As you will, Your Highness."

"Very good. My thanks to you."

"It is an honor," the man bows neatly, his tray tilting not a single millimeter, and whisks away to fulfill the prince's instructions.

The Adept, a petite young woman who barely stands to the prince's chest, rifles through the top drawers of a tall, thin chest with row after row of small drawers. Standing on her tiptoes, she can hardly peer over the top of the drawer as she reaches in blindly and fumbles about before withdrawing a small tube. Closing the drawer, she hurries back to the bed and climbs on it, kneeling next to his unconscious concubine.

Leaving her to it, Mon-El stands to stretch his legs for a bit, oversee the audience before walking over to the peg wall.

Drawn to a quartet of sweating, heaving bodies, his eyes alight on Lalla Bevy Han, the rather pixie-ish daughter of one of Daxam's highest Traders of the King's Council. Her father often sends the young Lalla to events such as these to make connections and uncover secrets, learning the family trade early as Lals and Lallas, the entitled children of Intelligence Traders, usually do.

Lalla Han, perhaps more concerned with giving and receiving pleasure than rooting out intelligence, toils energetically, her head between the writhing Lady Fey's thighs. Her knees are spread wide while Praetarch Don-Ec, an olive-skin gentleman of good standing, thrusts vigorously into her cunt, while slapping her flank like he's riding a garat to the goal line. Bringing up the rear of the chain behind Don-Ec, Physician Eminent Pekton Sel, ruts satisfyingly into the ass of the Praetarch, elegantly matching the rhythm of the other man's own pelvic thrusts. Eminent Sel is famously known for his striking lavender eyes, a mutation occurring in his birthing pod that was overlooked by the Procreational Authority of Genetic Enforcement because it was deemed a desirable trait to add to Daxamite code.

On another lounger, Lady Rayen Yar rides the wide, though stubby cock of Lord-Adjutant Telfen Mos, as he slurps noisily at one ample breast. Her concubinus fills her other hole while gripping her board straight strawberry blonde hair with both hands, while she screams in affirmation, hardly aware that the men exist as anything other than rutting flesh appendages that bring her pleasure.

Lady Yar is a lover of old for Lord-Adjutant Mos, first taking her at the nubile age of fifteen in a darkened closet during the din of one of her parent's orgies, when he'd been in his svelte prime of thirty-four. A source of temptation from the time her breasts had begun to bloom in earnest three years before. Mos, straining at the bit, withdrew from her parents' society to avoid the enticement of this too-young obsession. Until he began receiving personal flashes from her on his Daxcess account. Flashes of recorded holograms explicit in nature, leaving no doubt as to the desires of the then-thirteen year-old.

Refusing to touch her, for once in his life he did the right thing, consigning himself to wait for her to reach the consenting age of fifteen. However, his desires focused, and salivating over her burgeoning loveliness, Mos began sending her elaborately wrapped dildoes of increasing size, letting her know she would need to prepare herself for him. His gifts were well received, as was his final advance to take her against the wall of a coat closet two years later on her fifteenth birthday, her legs wrapped around his waist as he pummeled her soaking wet virgin clutch, one hand clamped around her mouth to control her grunts of pleasure, and the uninhibited whine of her teenage orgasm. Quite insatiable after that first time, they reveled in one another's bodies, so much so that two years later when it came time for Rayen's requisite chancel training to begin, little remained for the Adepts and their guru to teach her. She was certified 'Court Ready' and released from training after only a few weeks.

As a couple they lasted many years, but their proclivities were too similar to be complementary, so their trysts these days are limited to group gatherings such as these, and usually involve the addition of one or more parties.

Against the wall, a wardrobe of mirrors grabs his attention and, trying to distract his mind from the rampant needs of his cock, he approaches and opens its doors wide to audit its contents for something of use.

She drifts in darkness, swimming towards the surface of a black sea, but for every inch she gains, she loses two. Until there's an acrid, bitter odor that burns through the back of her nose and she fears she's drowning in the black until there's suddenly light and air. So much air, and she emerges from unconsciousness, her heart racing, her eyes wide open and there's not a single inch of her body that doesn't ache with use, or throb with delicious anticipation.

"What happened?" she asks the woman kneeling beside her. "Did I win?"

"You passed out, Senya," the Adept replies, shaking her head, a broken glass cylinder in her hand, the source of the acrid odor. Smelling salts.

"My name is Kara," she corrects.

"I am Viona," she introduces herself, bowing her head. "As the prince's personal concubine, you are granted the title 'Senya'. It is a title of great respect, indicating that you bring pleasure to your master. For what greater achievement can there be but bringing pleasure to a member of the Royal House Gand?"

Had she more energy, and a throat that felt less like the Sahara Desert, she might have laughed. "I can think of a few things," she retorts instead. Saving the world, rescuing those in need, foiling sinister plots of alien genocide or world domination, rescuing kittens out of trees, to name but a few. "I don't do it because he's the prince of Daxam." She stops short of saying anything more or implying her true reasons for choosing to be his sex slave, his pet.

"As you say," Viona nods, as though she doesn't believe Kara's motive can or should be anything more than the opportunity to secure the position and stability that comes with spreading her legs for the heir to the throne. Backing off the bed, Viona departs to dispose of the glass vial broken to wake Kara from her slumber. Kara watches her go, catching sight of a male servant carrying a tray approaching her. Discomfited by the intensity with which he bears down her and wholly aware of her listless exhaustion, Kara cast her eyes about in search of the prince. As though reading her mind, the servant is blockaded from her position when Lord Ral steps into his path.

After a few words are exchanged between them, the nobleman takes the tray from the servant and dismisses him. Ral places the tray on the extended portion of the bed's support platform before easing onto the mattress beside her. For reasons she doesn't understand, Ral's presence and nearness feels neither threatening nor intrusive. He brings with him a supportive vibe. "The prince wishes for you to take refreshment," he announces with a reassuring smile. "Do you think you have the energy?"

With a vengeance, her stomach roars to life, remembering that food exists with the mere mention of it. "I'm ravenous," she answers, licking her lips.

"Yes," he drawls, a wistful, lopsided smile on his face, "I think that's been well established. One might even say…insatiable." After a beat, they share a companionable chuckle at his innuendo. "You shouldn't eat laying down. Here…let me help you sit up." He reaches for her, sliding a hand between the mattress and her shoulder, the older going to her waist.

He helps her into an upright position while she tucks her legs demurely off to her side, keeping them squeezed tightly together. At first, making no demands, or even asserting the entitlement the prince quite clearly ascribed to him earlier, Ral's hands linger on her body, warm against her quickly cooling skin, one even caressing her ribs and brushing against the side of her breast before pulling away. Kara feels a sense of loss when his hands withdraw, but then immediately is flooded with guilt and concern.

Balking, not at the thought of his touch, but with the idea that Mon-El might witness it and become angry at seeing another man's hands on her body. Especially this man. Even if just in his mind, she doesn't wish to drive a wedge between Mon-El and the man who meant everything to him. But then, she recalls Mon-El telling her he wanted to watch her fuck Ral and decides that's rather explicit permission for a little caressing.

"His attention is elsewhere at the moment," Ral points out as though reading her mind, jerking his head in the direction of the prince's location. Following the direction of Lord Ral's indication, Kara sees the prince sorting through items in a wardrobe that appears to be completely constructed of mirrors on the outside. With the armoire's doors open he's unable to utilize the mirrors to see what's happening behind him.

Leaning into her, lips brushing against her the sensitive shell of her ear, he whispers, "Jealousy brings no one happiness and is, therefore, not an emotion indulged on Daxam. Besides…you and I both know he won't mind."

Mortified, she blushes and bows her head. "You heard?" she asks. When her master had informed her that he wanted to watch her fuck his dearest friend, his step-brother, she had thought he had spoken low enough to go unheard by the otherwise carnally engaged observers who making noises all on their own. But, of course, Lord Ral had not been carnally engaged – he had been riveted on her the entire time.

"I don't need to hear," he explains, reaching back to the tray on the platform. "No one knows Mon-El the way I do. I know all his desires and soon…you will too."

In his hand, he holds a chalice full to the brim of a dark orange liquid, which he holds to her lips. When she lifts a hand to take the cup, he shakes his head. "Open your mouth," he instructs. Just as with Mon-El, his tone compels her to comply, a warm shiver running down her spine like a reflex. Without even knowing what the cup contains, though she finds its color questionable, she wraps her lips around the rim of the cup.

Looking up into his angelic face, a lock of blonde hair falling carelessly across his forehead, Kara gets lost in his emerald green eyes.

"Head back," he orders, tilting the cup just enough to allow a gentle stream of liquid to hit the back of her throat. Her skin is luminous, he notes, her pert breasts, swollen and tender from ferocious manipulation, are perfectly formed, with nipples designed for suckling. Every part of her is magnificent, and the erection he's been sporting for hours now pulses with need. "Swallow," he says, unnecessarily, withdrawing the chalice long enough for her to take a breath.

The drink is sweet, a little syrupy, and she recognizes none of the exotic flavors. So thirsty, her lips and throat parched from exertion, the cool liquid hits the spot. "Good," she comments, placing her lips against the rim of the cup for more and waits for him serve her. It takes mere seconds for a warm feeling, as though sunshine has been poured into the marrow of her bones, to spread throughout her body. "Is it alcoholic?"

Ral looks at her as is she's lost her mind.

"Of course, it's alcoholic," she answers her own question.

"It's a restorative," he informs her, pouring another draught down her throat, "and will replenish some of your energies as well as take the edge off any discomfort you may feel, so you should take as much as you can. It should allow you to continue in short order."

"Did I really lose consciousness?" she inquires, after swallowing the syrupy concoction.

He nods, offering her another gulp. This time she drains it dry and he motions for the servant to bring another. "But it's important that you don't feel inadequate, darling Kara," Lord Ral reassures her, placing a hand on her thigh, the pads of his fingers lightly tracing unrecognizable shapes into her skin. "Most Adepts would not have lasted as long, considering the rather vigorous way that he was using you. Our dear prince is renowned for his stamina for obvious reasons. Thus far you've proved to be an excellent match for him."

"That's what I keep trying to tell him."

"Keep trying," Lord Ral, encourages. Picking up the tray, he sets it on the bed before him. It contains what appears to be a bunch of berries, similar to raspberries but a bright magenta in color, a small bowl of something that looks like yogurt, and thin slivers of meat that remind her of prosciutto. "Princes can be headstrong, as I'm sure you can imagine, especially when they think they're protecting someone they love. But I'm sure that's something you can understand."

Her interest piques on another matter, Kara decides to probe further. "You said….obvious reasons? What did you mean by that?"

"Did I say that?" Ral asks, a hand to his chest.

"Yes," she deadpans, pinning him with a glare. "For what obvious reasons is he renowned for his stamina?"

"We can talk about that later," he sidesteps. "For now, you need to eat. Open." Plucking a magenta berry from its vine, he places the berry on her tongue. "Chew."

Biting down on the berry, her mouth bursts with the sour flavor of the berry's juices, which mesh well with the sweetness of the restorative. "Mmmmm," she moans.

"Try it with the zabat," he offers, dipping a berry into the yogurt-like pudding and setting it on her tongue. The look on her face as she bites down is frighteningly similar to one she makes when Mon-El's cock pierces her, and he slides in deep. As if for the moment all the pieces of the universe fit perfectly together and there's not a worry to be found. Their Kara is an aphrodisiac with legs.

With the zabat comes a burst of additional flavor that pleases her, reminding her of a rich vanilla gelato. "Mmmm-hmmm," she moans again, tongue darting out to rescue a bead of zabat from her bottom lip.

Dipping another alm berry in zabat, he holds it out for her, but waits for her to take the initiative. Reading the sparkle of mischief in his eyes, she leans forward and takes the berry with her teeth, their eyes never losing contact. Again, Kara closes her eyes and sighs as the juice of the berry and its sweet dip rolls down the back of her throat.

Licking his lips, as her shiny blue eyes open to find his, her eyelids blinking lazily, Lord Ral says boldly, "I would like to see that look of ecstasy when you get that first taste of my cum, and you swallow it down like the eager girl you are."

Unbidden, her nipples harden again, electric arousal streaking straight to her core, other parts of her body wakening from its slumber. She swallows heavily and shyly tucks her head into her shoulder, damp hair falling like a curtain to shield her face from his view. Her body's reaction to his suggestion – to him – begets confusion. She loves Mon-El, even this part of him that refuses to accept it, this part of him that finds more interest in slaking lust than becoming a hero. But she is also attracted to his step-brother, Lord Ral, and her body is making that abundantly clear. Can she love one man and still be attracted to another?

"You're frightened and confused by what you're feeling right now," Lord Ral sympathizes. "And that's all right." Gently, seductively, he brushes the damp hair from her face and tucks it behind her ear, draping its ends down her back. His fingertips toys with the ends for a moment before trailing up her scapula to the round of her shoulder, and then down her arm. Her skin tingling at his touch, gooseflesh follows his fingertips creating a trail all its own. "Your body wants me, it's clear to anyone with eyes, my darling Kara."

"But Master—" she begins to protest, her eyes cast down to the grey velveteen on the bed cover.

"Is a magnanimous regent," Lord Ral finishes. "What's his is his and sometimes…what's his is also mine. He can be possessive, to be sure, but not at the cost of ignoring your needs," his deep voice coos, wrapping around her like warm blanket in a cold room. "He would never deny you…unless you did something to deserve it. Open," he instructs holding up another alm berry.

Kara accepts what he offers, one after another and another, her mind chewing over his words, just as she chews up the berries. She doesn't understand her attraction to him – how it can be so strong without compromising her love for Mon-El in the slightest? Already she's keen to explore his body, learn it, and catalogue the differences between Mon-El's musculature and Lord Ral's. Her salivary glands send forth another burst at the thought of learning his flavor.

Using an alm berry, he applies a layer of zabat to her lips before placing the fruit on her tongue. She meticulously cleans them of the delicious treat before popping the grape between her teeth, chewing it and swallowing it down. "You. Are. Magnificent," he admires, the pupils of his eyes widening until only a thin diameter of emerald green remains. "When I take you, my darling Kara, I wish you to be certain that you know your own desire." A lopsided smile, she's already come to associate with her master's bond-brother, quirks up on one side of his mouth revealing a single, deep dimple. "But there's no harm in playing, is there?"

Kara smiles, ducking her head again at the dirty thoughts that pop into her head. Thoughts which, if she's honest with herself, invaded her mind and her body, the moment he locked her spread legs over her head, and then bent down to sniff her cunt.

"Is there?" he asks again, his tone indicating he expects an answer.

Casting a glance at her master, who's huddling again with Viona, she shakes her head, hoping it's the right decision and that Lord Ral doesn't lead her astray – or into a trap. "No," she whispers, shaking her head. "There's no harm in playing."

"Good girl," he replies, his smile going full-blown, taking her breath away, just like Mon-El's. "You just let me know if anything makes you uncomfortable, all right?"

Kara nods, a wainscot of butterflies taking flight in her belly. "What…what should I call you, Lord Ral?" she inquires, curious about his preference. Should this go where it seems to be leading, and should her master allow it, Kara would like to know what Lord Ral wants her to call him while he's fucking her.

Ral considers her question, biting on his lower lip as he dips another alm berry in zabat. "Well…your master is your master, and always will be. So…why not call me…'my lord'?"

Kara smiles shyly again, the butterflies making it harder to breathe. "Yes, my lord," she answers, her response coquettish, but unpracticed.

"Do you even know what a flirt you are, I wonder?" He's drenched the second to last alm berry in far too much zabat, because so much remains, and the sweet pudding drips down his fingers as he offers her the fruit.

Her energy returning at last, thanks in part to the food and drink, and in part to the man in front of her, she slides her fingers around his wrist and takes the berry between her teeth, chewing it and swallowing it down with relish. Finding the amount of zabat on his fingers to be wasteful, Kara boldly wraps her lips around the top knuckles of his fore and middle fingers. Ardently, blue eyes search green as she looks for a clue that this attention in undesired but finds the opposite instead. Discovering even more boldness within, she slides the rest of the fingers into his mouth. They pet her tongue as she sucks the sticky, sweet zabat from the digits, while holding his wrist with both hands now, moving her mouth over his fingers as though rehearsing for the moment when it will be his cock in her mouth. Kara is shocked to find herself hoping that comes sooner, rather than later.

"You like that, do you?" he asks, his voice deepening as his arousal thickens. "Do you like the way I taste in your mouth?"

Pulling his fingers from the warm cavern of his mouth, unable to tear her eyes from his, she nods slowly, an innocent again despite the ways she's been used, "Yes, my Lord."

"Last one." Plucking the final alm berry from its dried vine, he dips it again and then lifts it to her mouth, but when she leans forward and opens her mouth to take it, he snatches it away. Chuckling at the childlike pout that forms on her face, Ral makes a show of placing the berry between his own teeth, leaving the ball in her court.

Boldness suddenly deserting her, Kara sucks on her lower lip while her eyes dart back and forth from Mon-El's position at the wardrobe to the luscious treat patiently holding a delicious piece of fruit captive. He says nothing and only waits, hoping she'll answer his invitation. It would be rude not to, she tells herself. He's been so kind and reassuring and it hasn't escaped her notice that he's the only person in the room who calls her by her name. That realization alone is enough to swing the vote.

Careful not to touch him in any other way, Kara leans forward and places her lips on his, allowing him to transfer to berry into her mouth. A flash of memory to a night that seems far away now, when she and Mon-El shared a taste of wine, has her pulling away from the kiss to pop the berry and release its juices and then offering him her lips again. He quickly takes control, though without a hint of urgency or authority, merely exploring, much as her body urges to her to do with him. Kara opens her mouth, making room for his tongue to peek inside, and she shares the flavor of the berry with him, darting her tongue forward to meet with his. Finally, their lips meld together, tasting and sipping, just a bit of sucking here and the flick of a tongue there.

"Gods of Val-or," he breathes as he retreats, pressing his forehead to hers, the room spinning from the simplest of kiss. "Kara Zor-El," he sighs, "you're going to be the end of me."

Kara sighs as well, because she knows, on some level, he's probably right, and Mon-El must know it too. "Maybe we shouldn't…." she says, attempting to pull away.

His hand, striking like a cobra, grabs for her arm before she can escape. "After that kiss? Not a chance, sunshine. I watched you overcome your Kryptonian inhibitions today, don't run scared now. Kiss me again," he flirts, leaving her the option to refuse. Madam Fortis's tenets teach that only a surrender on an even playing field holds any worth at all; it means nothing if your partner is backed into a corner. The Disingenuous Détente, she always calls it.

Taken aback by his flirtation, Kara gives him a look of mock reproach before rolling her eyes at his irrepressible charm.

"Kiss me," he teases, mouth almost close enough to feel his breath on her lips. "You know you want to." And she does, as much as it baffles her. Ral's charismatic smile slips a notch as he notes the crinkle rising on her forehead and her eyes disconnecting from him. "Hey," he says soothingly, "why all these worries?" Reaching up he attempts to smooth away the concern from between her brows with his thumb. "You're afraid of your feelings, but you needn't be. You're afraid of what he might think but allowing yourself only one lover is to live a fractioned life. This is the way he was raised, the way I was raised. It's a part of who we are."

"Am I selfish then, for not wanting him to be with anyone else?" she wonders, speaking her truth.

"Only if you force monogamy on him," Ral says resolutely, his fingers tangling with hers on the bed, learning their texture, their length…their softness. "But our prince has had more lovers than he can count and, he'd never admit this," Ral whispers, "but he wearies of it. He has spent his wildness in the years of his youth and even beyond."

Kara snorts a sarcastic laugh. "It doesn't seem that way."

"He does this for you," Ral explains, "though he would never say it. He tells himself that he wants you to go and that by showing you all of this…him…you'll run from this place. And a part of him believes that's true, although I think he's learning that you're made of stronger stuff."

"Stranger stuff, you mean," she mumbles, wondering why she's not normal, like other women she's known.

"There's nothing wrong with you, sunshine. Look around you…we all have our quirks and fetishes." Following his advice, Kara does look around the room full of naked flesh, most now inert, taking a breather from their activities. Lord Ral points at a tall man near the back with a wiry, but muscular frame, and a cock that seems perfectly proportional on the body to which it was assigned. "Viceroy Bak'rum likes his body to be confined in intricately tied ropes and hung from the ceiling. Personally…I don't see the attraction, but to each his own. Praetarch Don-Ec would rather be running naked through the Harkum Wilds, hunted down like sexual prey. "Embrace who you are without reservation," he advises. "Don't be afraid to demand more for yourself. Be fulfilled so that you never leave this life wondering what you missed. Drink deep of all of its pleasures. This is the Daxamite way, my darling Kara."

His words strike straight to her heart. Has she not witnessed the evidence of this throughout this experience? Women and men changing partners like Kara Danvers changes into Supergirl? Women making their own choices, empowered by their sexual agency? And had she not promised herself, while her master was buried deep inside of her and making her come, that she would embrace Daxamite philosophies and refuse to suppress her primal urges ever again?

Before she can lose her nerve, Kara takes his mouth with hers again, sucking lightly on his bottom lip, tasting it as if is another grape to be devoured. He tilts his head, to reposition her mouth, sliding a hand into her hair, and darts his tongue past her lips. It's not frantic or passionate, but exploratory; tongues touching lightly to each other and then, emboldened, they seek new texture, like the smooth glide of well cared for teeth, or the bumpiness in the hard palate. Breath is heavy, but not heaving when he tears away.

"There's a good girl," he coos. "But best not to dive too deep on our first adventure," he says, his breath slightly labored. His eyes are glazed as though the power of their kiss has taken him completely by surprise. She doesn't know why, when it is no shock to her. Picking up a bowl from the tray, Ral says, "You seem much restored, but there is still flank to be eaten, and Mon-El will not return to you until you've been replenished. Open."

A sliver of meat, so thin it is nearly transparent, is placed on her tongue and it nearly melts in her mouth. Kara need hardly make the effort to chew. And its flavor, like a well-seasoned prime rib, has her moaning in appreciation again. Lord Ral emits his own noises in response to hers as he hands her another slice.

"Ask your questions," he instructs, perhaps a little gruffly. "Take my mind off of how badly I want to sink my cock into you."

His instruction now makes his organ an item of curiosity for her, though earlier she had meticulously avoided looking at it, choosing instead to focus on his eyes. His shimmery, linen pants are no match for the snake that slithers down one of legs. Daxam men may spend half their adult lives with an erection, but at least their trousers won't cause discomfort.

Shaking off thoughts of running her tongue down the length of his dick, she asks, "Y-you mentioned that his stamina was renowned for obvious reasons…?"

"Jealous, darling?"

"I was referring to the 'obvious reasons' part. The reasons aren't obvious to me. It can't just be because of practice," Kara suggests, emphasizing the word with a raise of her eyebrows. "Because I look around and it seems like everyone gets plenty of practice."

"Ahh…yes," Ral sighs, pursing his lips together. "Much like on Krypton, Daxamites are born through the use of birthing matrices, the products of which are overseen by the Procreational Authority of Genetic Enforcement. It is during a process called 'Advancement' that a potential's code is tweaked so that they may better serve the community as a whole. Commander-Lord Raines over there, likely had his genetics manipulated in Advancement so that his musculature would be denser, or that his aggression would override pacifistic tendencies, or that his brain would be gifted at problem-solving strategies. He's still his parents' progeny, but his Advancement has leaned their genetics in a very specific direction."

"Towards the military," she infers.

"Precisely. Just like his mother. Open. What do you know about Mon-El's Advancement?" he asks, the meat's flavorful juices dancing on her tongue before sliding down her throat.

At first, Kara's shakes her head. "He didn't even tell me he was the prince. Oh, wait!" she exclaims, a memory of the last time they had been alone in her loft coming to mind. "I thought he was just a palace guard then, but he mentioned that he had been made to be a 'breeder. I had asked him why they would want to breed a palace guard and he said he had good genes."

"At the King's request, Mon-El's Advancement included a few uncommon adjustments." Ral places another sliver of meat on her waiting tongue, as he struggles internally with how much to reveal to her. "It's not unusual for a man to want his son to be virile, or gifted in the phallus department, as if that somehow reflects upon him entirely, but King Vir perhaps took these desires a bit too far. But he's the king, so what can you do, right? Anyway, during Mon-El's Advancement stage, the King had the prince's genetics adjusted so that his virility would be unparalleled, his refractory period almost nil – as you might have already learned – because his body creates only a small amount of the hormone that triggers it. The speed at which his reproductive system produces seed was altered as well."

"Altered?"

"His system creates seed faster than he can spend it, which is why the faucet hasn't been reduced to trickle yet. In theory, he can come a thousand times back to back and never run dry, never need time to replenish. To be truthful, this is closest he's come to truly putting that theory to the test." Lord Ral grins. "Pun intended. Lucky girl," he teases, a pointed glance downward at her clenched thighs, bits of her master's cum still drying on them. "And then there's the reproductive materials itself…."

"What about it?" she inquires, her eyes widening with curiosity.

"Most males are manipulated in Advancement so that only twenty-five percent of their reproductive material is viable for fertility. We all receive injectable birth control measures, but this prevents accidental breeding or even the intentional rebellion against Daxam's reproductive status quo. But it also ensures that only the most viable genetic component is available for use by PAGE."

"But Mon-El?"

"Has viability of over ninety-six percent," Ral reveals. "All of it…prime spawning material."

"So, he's a baby-making machine," she concludes, shoving down the sadness that tries to reach the surface.

"Just the way his father wanted him," Ral replies, no small amount of bitterness in his tone.

"But why?" she inquires.

"For that answer, you will have to ask him," Ral indicates Mon-El, who stands, arms crossed, legs spread, in front of the peg wall, as though debating his options.

"And you?" she asks, her eyes darting to his pants leg. "How were you tweaked in Advancement?"

Ral grins, appreciative of her interest. "All potentials are screened for health problems and undesirable mutations. This ensures the production of healthy children who fall within an acceptable guideline of 'normal'," he clarifies. "But my parents were a love match and thought it romantic to have a child gifted to them by the gods. So, outside of the baseline, I wasn't genetically manipulated. No tweaking for me."

"Not even this?" she asks, tentatively reaching for the long, thick bulge in is trousers. She cups her hand around it, caressing it until she can feel the heat of it through the thin material.

"Kara," he sighs, leaning forward to capture he lips with his. Without prompting, she opens her mouth for his questing tongue, sinking into his kiss as her hand and thumb rub up and down is covered phallus. Knowing that the best course of action in their current situation, is to leave her wanting more, he summon enormous amounts of self-control and draws slowly away from the kiss.

"No! My lord?" she whines as his lips separate from hers.

"You can't possibly know how it makes me feel to feel how much you want me. And that you're beginning to accept it. But for this to go farther, it will require the full knowledge of your master and not the slightest reservation from you. Do you understand?"

Reluctantly, forced to ignore the clamoring in her body, Kara agrees, bowing her head. "Yes, my lord."

"Good girl." Rewarding her for her agreement, and perhaps to torment her a little, he flicks a thumb against the clamp on one nipple, setting it free; the clamp now dangling by the connecting chain from the other breast. Leaning down, Lord Ral draws the freed nipple into the warm cavern of his mouth, sucking and sucking and sucking until he wonders if might not be able to stop. Staking just the tiniest of claims upon her.

Increased blood flow to her nipple makes it hypersensitive, and his mouth provides just the right amount pressure to turn her entire body into a boneless mess. "My lord," she exhales, her fingers slipping into his thick blonde curls. Gripping tightly at his hair to hold him in place, her head drops back, her neck unable to support it as her clutch pulses with rapidly growing need.

Disconnecting from her breast with a wet pop and a lascivious smile, he retreats, reaching for the tray. "Another time," he promises, licking his lower lip as though to catch one more taste of her. Picking up the tray and standing up, a significant tent in his pants, Lord Ral leaves her burning for more and walks away as if they aren't both desperate for relief.

TBH


	11. Chapter 11

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: Extreme explicitness. in regards to sexual behavior. BDSM. Please read responsibly. You've been warned.

Chapter 11/?

The thing about mirrored rooms, is that there are no secrets and there's always a view to be found. Even standing at the armoire, Mon-El has a view of the bed – of his Senya – the entire time, through a series of reflections. Unaware of his scrutiny, he observes unobtrusively from a distance, watching the Adept awaken her from unconsciousness. Half-heartedly, he rifles through and discards clothing and other garments as he catalogues her current state. Golden hair soaked dark with sweat, perspiration still clinging to her body, and the slackened, drowsy look on her face all serve to make her appear all used up. Which only makes him want to use her more.

He wonders if it's simply her – if it's just that he's insatiable for _her_ – or if it's the Callus Band's influence. Casting a glance at some of the others in the room; Lady Max, Praetarch Don-Ec, and Lalla Han, Mon-El feels only a mild desire to fuck them, but with the Kryptonian, it's an entirely different compulsion.

He smiles as Ral intercepts the tray of food meant for his pet, and watches unobtrusively as their conversation unfolds, though he can hear nothing they say. Her body language, the way she flushes and leans in, indicates an undeniable attraction, and it appears that Ral's unstoppable charm will have her lowering her Kryptonian defenses in record time. Of course, despite her Kryptonian upbringing, she has a truly beautiful, wanton need for cock and that will only work to Ral's advantage. The thought of watching Ral fuck her, his pet writhing in ecstasy as his bond-brother comes inside of her, thrills him in a way he can't begin to explain. All of the best things in life, they have shared together.

He expected that this might take time, since she only seemed willing to lower her defenses for her master, but the way she's sucking on Ral's fingers right now, tells another tale.

Perhaps sending her away is not the best idea, Mon-El ruminates. It is clear that none of his attempts to dominate her to her limit have worked, none have brought the word 'mercy' to her lips, and he doubts anything will at this point. It is not the sex that will drive her away, that appears to only drive her closer because, in that, they seem completely compatible. Rather, the secrets he keeps so carefully hidden from her are now more likely to provide the impetus needed for her to go. If he's being honest with himself, this entire exercise has been little more than smoke and mirrors, hiding his true secret from her. Now all he needs is to find the courage to show her the truth. He'll start small, with the least of his horrors, his mistakes, and work his way up from there.

Right after he gets this excruciating Callus Band to disengage.

Choosing a garment of interest, a submissive harness, he tests its strength, pulling its scaly leather bands taut to ensure no weakness. It will pinch her in all the right places, press into her flesh and leave marks, each one a reminder of the master that commands her to wear it. Flipping through a rack of hanging gowns he finds the one that appears to match the harness and pulls it down.

Anticipating his need, the Adept steps up to his side and awaits his instruction. Mon-El hands her the harness first. "When Lord Ral has finished offering her refreshment…and arousing her interest…see that she's harnessed."

"Yes, Your Highness. And the rules?" Viona curtsies.

"Master's rules, of course," he answers without hesitation. "Here is the gown. Have it taken to my Senya chambers when we're done here. And I shall leave it to you to find an acceptable handmaiden for her. One well-versed in the tender needs of a Senya."

"As you will." Viona takes the flimsy gown and tucks it away to follow his instructions later.

His cock screaming for relief, he distracts himself by ambling over to the peg wall with the Adept, pointing at a few items. If he's going to lose this challenge, then he's damn well going to plan a strategy for his next move, for her pleasure and for his. Intent on applying the next step of the punishment he owes her for coming without his permission, at first he unhooks a sizeable anal plug, but then a rather imposing looking instrument catches his attention instead. He muses the possibilities of employing it. Just the sight of it could terrify her enough to see reason, but on the chance that it doesn't, it could bring both of them satisfaction, perhaps quieting the special needs that clamor in both of them.

Replacing the anal plug on the wall, he hands the Adept the instrument. "And this," he indicates. "See that it's prepared for her use."

Viona bows, taking the device without even a flinch at its appearance.

"Oh, and one more thing," he calls before she can scurry away to do his bidding. "She needs a collar – a training collar. One that befits her station as the Senya to the Crowned Prince."

"Code Lock, Your Highness?"

"Level Three."

Satisfied that he is prepared, Mon-El catches a glimpse of Ral suckling on the nipple of his pet, to which she seems quite receptive. Were it another man, he might rage at the thought of her allowing such freedoms behind his back, but Ral knows his mind, and would never betray him. Even now, Ral pulls away from her breast, seeking no further entrenchment out of respect for him, and departs the field, his cock still painfully at full staff. Catching his eyes in the mirror as Ral hands the tray to the male servant, he winks at him, letting him no he had seen the whole display and approved. Ral winks back, indicating that he was aware the entire time.

On the bed, need pulsing through her, courtesy of Lord Ral, Kara is ready for distraction when Viona comes to her, holding what looks to be a mess of black, scaly leather strips. "Viona?" she inquires, curiously.

"Senya," she curtsies. "Your master asks that you wear this."

"He _asks_?"

"He commands," Viona corrects.

"That's more like it," Kara replies, a slow smile spreading across her face.

"If you would stand, Senya?"

"Of course." On her hands and knees, Kara crawls to the end of the bed, her legs nearly collapsing from beneath her when she attempts to stand. Viona assists her as it takes a moment to find her lands leg again. No sooner does she stand up straight, Kara is reminded why she sat on the bed with her thighs squeezed so tightly together, when she feels dribble of her master's cum trailing down her thigh. Bending down, she wipes at, tries to push it back inside, but knows it's a losing battle, so she loses it.

"Would like a towel?" Viona asks.

"No," she responds quickly, almost before the last vowel leaves Viona's mouth. "Master wouldn't like that." She'll just have to let it drip until she can get back on the bed.

As though to distract the distressed Senya, Viona reaches for a goblet from a passing tray and hands it Kara. "Perhaps you should take another glass of restorative."

"That's not a bad idea." Plucking the goblet from Viona's hand, Kara knocks it back, drinking the entire contents in one breath.

Fiddling with the leather bindings for a moment, Viona figures out which end is up, before bending down and indicating where that Kara should step. Only as Viona drags the binding up her body does Kara realize it's a harness. Cool metal rings, each about an inch in diameter, hold the leather strips together in strategic places; across her belly and ribcage, and around her hips. Two strips of leather, travel from the single ring at her belly button, between her legs to another ring that nestles in the middle of her dimples where her lower back curves into her ass.

His cock burning to be inside of her, Mon-El wanders over to the bed, sitting on the edge, a chalice of blue liquid in one hand. Draining his drink, just as she does hers, he sets the empty goblet on the platform extension to be retrieved later. Picking up the heavy cock between his legs, he grips and squeezes it, pumping it with long, slow draws that pay careful attention to the weeping head. Leaning back on his elbows, he watches lazily as the Adept dresses his pet in her new garment.

Slipping her arms through the spaces where the Adept indicates, her breasts pop through diamond shaped spaces formed by short leather strips and metal rings. At several locations on the harness, the rings are met with buckles, allowing the adjustment in size and stricture of the trappings. Meticulously, Viona begins adjusting buckles until the leather stresses into her skin, the rings promising to create red circles on her flesh. Tightening the buckle at her back, the twin strips of leather originating from her belly button, tighten to pinch her vulva together when she stands with her thighs closed. Spread her legs slightly and bands slip into her seam, placing pressure on her clit. However, there is enough give in the strips to pull them apart so that his cock can get between them. Two delicious ways of wearing the center strips so that she will be sexually aroused with the simplest of movement, either by pleasure or by pain. Her choice.

After the last buckle is adjusted, and she takes a moment to question how cinching her body so tightly in can make her feel empowered and sexy and, ironically, in control. Viona slips a shiny, polished collar around her neck, the inside lined with plush red velvet, moving Kara's hair aside to bring the ends together in the back, until there's a hiss and a click, locking her in. Kara's fingers find the texture of smooth metal and a four leash rings, one on each side of her neck, and she buzzes inside as though he has given her gift she's always wanted. As her final act, Viona replaces the dangling nipple clamp, left behind by Lord Ral, positioning the clamp back where it belongs, the chains draping in a perfect arc outside of the rigging.

Their eyes meet as her fingers study the texture of the collar and slide down to test the tautness of the harness. Leaning back on his elbow, he hunts her with his eyes, imagines himself the predator and her the prey upon whom he will pounce when she least expects. His ass clenches at the thought of rolling her onto her stomach and driving into her wet pussy from behind, driving and driving until he spills inside of her. He watches, as another stream of his spunk trickles down her leg, every intention of replacing it running through his head.

The harness and the collar are a greater gift to her than anyone knows, perhaps even Mon-El himself. He's giving up the game and accepting defeat. They are his white flag on the field, an acceptance that she isn't going anywhere, at least not today. With these, he claims her with more than words and seed. He claims her so that all can see she is his, and why would he do that if he didn't expect her to stay. Caressing the collar with her fingers, Kara thinks about how to gift him in return, but recognizes that her body, her surrender, her worship, is all the gift she has to give.

Making her way over to him, she drops to her knees on the platform before him, his legs spreading to make more room for her. Sitting back on her haunches, she grips at his well-defined thighs and leans forwards, nuzzling into his nest with her nose. Finding her target, she wraps her lips around one of his testicles and suckles it, the way he does her breast. She can feel a slight pulsing coming from the Callus Band and matches its rhythm.

"Vartine," he curses, his head dropping back as she moves on to the next testicle.

Next, she kisses her way up his colossal cock, taking a moment to study it for the first time since it reached full size. The skin around it is so thin, she can see the pulsing of red and blue veins beneath, can feel the pulse on her lips when she kisses it, her eyes tilting upward to meet his, until they drift close, a mixture of bliss and need swimming through him. Between her legs, her fingers separate the leather bands pressing into her thrumming clit.

In a swift move, while his eyes are still closed, she gains her feet, straddles his legs and crabs his cock as though she's taking it hostage. Not interested in any teasing or giving him an unsatisfactory blow job that only results in an aching jaw for her, she aligns his dick with her entrance and sinks down. Down and down, her tight cunt protesting his girth but surrendering to each glorious inch of satin-wrapped steel, until she's his scabbard, taking him in to the hilt. It burns through her like fire, but at the same time it feels so good she could die from the rapture of it.

" _Uuuunnngghh_ ," they groan in unison when their connection is secure. Observing audience members applaud quietly and murmur their approval.

When her passage has adjusted to his presence, Kara leans forward, her hands grasping for his shoulders as she begins undulating her hips, riding his cock in the small increments this position will allow. Breathless with pleasure again, it's as if it hasn't been less than an hour since he's been right where he is now. In no rush to climax for the moment, just enjoying the hot slide of her scorching pussy on his aching member, he lets her ride him for long breathless moments of building pleasure. Eyes drifting partially closed in response to the bliss her tight, hot cunt provides him, he watches her ride his tool through lids at half-mast.

"You like that cock, don't you, Pet?" he slurs, fingers leaving behind marks as they dig into the globes of her superb ass. With incrementally ravenous intent, he guides her up and down his rod, periodically slapping her ass while gripping it tightly as she throws back her head, hips moving with increasing wildness in response to his roughness.

"Yes, yes, yes, Master," she answers with a blissful smile, quite pleased with herself. Lifting up on her tiptoes, she increases the tempo, raising herself a few more inches before dropping down to the hilt again. But after a few moments, she begins to look for a new position, a new sensation. She lifts her knees as close to her chest as their position will allow, forcing him to hold her steady. Straightening her legs, she slides them on to the bed, and reaches for his shoulders for the leverage she needs to keep moving. "Will you…touch me, Master?" she asks, bravely.

"What would you like, Pet?"

"Suck me," she says, simply…hopefully.

Nodding, he removes the clamps, tosses them aside and bends over to take her nipple in his mouth. She's accommodating enough to arch her back for him and somewhere in the middle of the process, his hands hold fast to her hips while his pelvis joins her efforts, his cock meeting her pussy with greater force.

" _Pleaseohpleaseohplease_ …" she begs, her fingers diving into his hair, holding him there, anchoring her to the paradise he provides. But she's not even sure what she really wants until he asks.

"You want me to take over?" he asks, already knowing the answer.

"Yes, Master," she concedes, when his mouth goes back to her nipple, using his lips, teeth and tongue to bring her nearer to her approaching climax. "Thank you," she cries, hands fisting his hair. "Thank you."

"For what?" he wonders, switching to the other breast.

Breathlessly, she answers, "For your gifts." Hips still churning against his.

After another moment of sucking her nipple to a hard peak, he sits up and drags her mouth to his, owning it with his tongue and lips until her chest is heaving in its search for air. "Would you like me to show you one way to use it?"

"Yes," she answers, her hips still rolling like a wave over his, even though he isn't buried deep. Even if he can't pillage her, she moves to spark the nerves butted up against his dick. " _Yeah…yeah…yeah_ ," she keens with each roll of her hips.

"All right, I will, but first I'm going to need you to do something for me."

"Anything," she moans. "Anything."

"Tell me how hard you want me to fuck you," he cajoles. Cupping her breast and squeezing one turgid nipple between his thumb and forefinger, he twists it ruthlessly before bending down to soothe it, by sucking it into his mouth.

" _Oh…oh…oh,"_ she moans, hands gripping at the unyielding hardness of his flesh. "I want you to fuck me so hard, Master… _Sweet Rao_! I want you to _…oh…ahh_ …fuck me…so hard I feel it for weeks afterward. I'm getting close," she adds breathlessly. "Are you getting close?"

"Not yet. I'll need to fuck you harder than this to be close. And you're not allowed to come until I say so."

Not quite able understand why he would let her go slow when he needs to orgasm, she breathlessly begs, "Fuck me _…oh fuck…oh yeah_ …fuck me hard enough to come, Master. As hard as it takes." A smattering of applause greets this request.

He digs his fingers beneath the strips of leather that wind from her breast, under her armpit and around to her back. It's a tight fit, so he knows she'll get more stimulation than just the feeling of his cock inside of her. His muscled thighs quivering with the effort, he stands up from the bed until she's impaled on him, only his cock and the hands on her harness holding her up. When her legs lift he warns, "Don't put your legs around my waist. Tuck in," he groans. "Put your knees against my elbows."

She does as instructed and with that, her whole world turns upside down. Observers, draped naked across lounges or sprawled on the floor, are now on the ceiling, applauding their prince's bold move. Her hair dangling above her head, scraping the ceiling as well. Disoriented, one might think gravity a myth, were not the shoulder straps of her harness digging in deep to support her.

"Whoa," she says, a nervous giggle escaping.

"Hands on the ground," he commands.

Her hands, which had been flailing for purchase without quite knowing where to go, land on the ground and she pushes back, taking some of the pressure off his arms – but also, she realizes with a gasp, it pushes his cock deeper into her. With a full giggle, she understands that he means to fuck her upside down. Her legs, search for a roost that will provide the most leverage and least inconvenience, but finding none, she just opens them as wide as she can, bending them at the knees.

Gripping doggedly to the harness, he pulls out of her and then slams back in, yanking her body back upon his aching dick. It doesn't take long to find a way to work together. Trusting that he won't let her fall, she bends her arms as he retreats, straightening them as he plunges to add a little extra oomph with his penetration. They can't go fast, but they can go hard, and from their place on the ceiling, the audience applauds the sideshow they create. Kara reminds herself to give them a bow when they're done.

" _Uunngghh…uunngghh…uunnngghh_ …." He roars with each thrust, thankful for the restorative that replenished him to some degree, though he knows he won't last long at this. His grunts are met with a high-pitched shriek from her until she begins, to his chagrin, calling for the Kryptonian god that has nothing to do with pleasuring her.

" _OhRao…oh…oh Rao!_ " Kara shouts, her pitch rising as each thrust of his cock seems to hit her special spot – the one that makes her squirt. And Holy Rao! Her arms are going to hurt in the morning. "Are you…close?

He can the feel the build, feel the energy gathering at the base of his spine and the buzz then flows through his scrotum and testicles and then up and up, spreading to every part of his skin.

"Tell me what you want, Pet," he growls, jolting her back onto his cock over and over, his biceps and forearms straining with the effort. "Say it…."

"Put your cum inside me, Master. Your cum…can make me…come too!"

"Show me," he demands, both challenging and giving her permission at the same time. Pounding her harder using the combination of his pelvic thrust, pulling back on her reins and the additional upwards thrust she provides, he takes a few more lunges until the dam breaks. His entire body convulses with release, as though he's touched a live wire and become a conduit for electricity. Hot cum gushes into her, and the flood of seed mixed with the head of his cock striking her G-Spot extra hard has her squirting all over his dick.

Losing his mind at the feel of her stream of cum ejaculating on his cock, he yanks up on the harness and drops to his knees, guiding them both to the floor. Mon-El covers her body, pinning her to the floor, his chest flattening her breasts, her legs wide open and weary arms splayed out. Rutting mindlessly into her like a beast, he focuses only on emptying as much of himself as he can into her. His lizard brain seems to think that her cum means she's ripe for planting and will be told no differently. Pounding into her, the sound of skin slapping together as his hips pummel hers, he chases the promise of another release, another chance to put his scion into her.

She chants encouragements in that pleading tone that drags him into madness. His body locks up on his next dig.

" _Uuuunnnnghh_ ," he grunts, head buried in the crook of her neck, as he spurts another heavy well-earned stream. "Take that," he grounds out between clenched teeth, hips still pumping.

" _Mmmmmmm_ ," she moans, her fisting pussy drinking him all in, every drop he can give her. "More," she pleads, her lips against his ear, sliding her hands down his back to cup his ass. Her fingernails digging into skin as he plunges back in like an unstoppable juggernaut.

As if capitulating to her demand, his muscles clench as he drives into her, one last jet of cum forcing its way out of him. When it's finished, his entire body melts on top of her, the power of his climax sweeping her. Mon-El floats in the fog of his mind while his Kryptonian whore's hands slide soothingly up and down his back, even as her pussy ripples around his damnably unquenchable cock, her breath heavy in his ear.

And again, it doesn't take long for the Callus Band to send his cock the signals to continue, but rather than fuck his concubine into the ground right here, Mon-El pulls out, to her vocal disappointment. Never in his life has he had a lover so covetous of what he has to give, so insatiable. Or perhaps it's her stubbornness willingly allowing herself to be fucked to death before throwing the white flag. Damn her!

Standing over her, legs shaking, arms and back depleted from exertion, his dewy cock protrudes painfully from between his legs. Gripping it, he shakes and massages the tool until another squirt splashes on her chest, followed quickly by another across her face. "Stop calling for that Kryptonian god of yours," the prince commands. "I'm your god, now. You will scream only for your master."

Dripping their combined fluids all over her face, chest and tummy, Kara doesn't mind the warm mess, or his obvious display of dominance; blissfully watching him tower over her as she caresses the fluids into her skin with one hand while the other maintains constant contact with him. Her hair splays out on the floor beneath her like a Vartine's glory drifting beautifully underwater. "Yes, master."

"Crawl over to the bed," he commands, shaking more of the sticky mess from his phallus onto her. "Crawl for me."

Rolling onto her stomach, she pushes herself to her hands and knees using arms already on the edge of exhaustion. From her position on the floor, she recognizes a pair of shoes, her gazes following up his calves and legs until it reaches his face to find Lord Ral looking down at her, eyes gleaming, cock as rock hard as ever. His eyes rake over her nude, wrecked form, cum dripping from between her legs and smearing every part of her, hair soaked with sweat, and he smiles gently at her.

"Crawl!" her master commands, his palm landing solidly against her backside. Her spine arches at the jolt of it, but a smile slowly spreads across her face as the sting turns into a warm glow. Her eyes meet Lord Ral's once more, letting him know that the spanks are welcome.

"Yes, Master," she purrs, turning around and crawling back towards the bed, flaunting her pink, wet parts for both of them. Reaching her destination, he instructs her to lay face down on the bed, her knees on the platform, spread wide, her hands on the bed beside her head.

Observing as she assumes her position, the Adept offers him the implement chosen from the wall earlier, having prepared it with copious amounts of lubrication. "Well done," he approves. Viona blushes and then bows before backing away.

Glancing behind her, while attempting to maintain the position prescribed for her, Kara catches sight of the instrument her master plans to use next. She would be lying to herself if she said it didn't look like a medieval torture device. Wondering if this is it…if this is the implement she can't handle, she feels a thrill of fear race through her and, taking a deep breath, she grips obstinately to the bed's coverlet. "I will not cry out', she vows in her own mind. 'I will not be frightened'.

Made of metal, from all appearances the implement is a giant hook of some kind, her prince looking for all the world as though he plans to go shark hunting. Instead of a sharp point on the end on the hook, there's a silver end slightly smaller than a tennis ball that he seems to be carefully examining. At the top of the hook, there's a circlet threaded with a cord of some sort, its purpose not yet determined. Turning her head on the mattress, her eyes seek Lord Ral, as if searching for comfort and reassurances from him. Thankfully, she finds it there, in soft green eyes and a blonde head that nods reassuringly towards her.

Mon-El smiles at the sight of her bending over the bed, her pussy wet and waiting for him. Fear pours from her skin like sweat as she seeks solace from his bond-brother, who is more than willing to provide it, judging by the expression on his face. He should like to give them both a taste soon. The heavy hook in his hands demands to be used and he owes her a punishment, which is what happens to whores who come on their master's cocks without permission.

From behind her, he instructs, "Spread your ass wide."


	12. Chapter 12

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 12/?

Kara's entire body shivers with alarm, her thighs quaking with exhaustion and her arms like boneless filet as they meet his demands with little resistance. Instinctively, the drawstring rim around her unyielding hole tightens further, prepared to repel the advance he clearly wishes to hasten.

The prince leans over her, placing his hand on the mattress besides, effectively blocking her comforting view of Lord Ral. "You don't think you're going to get away from this, do you?" he taunts. "You know there's only one way. Why don't you just say it?" he tempts once more.

"You w-wish, Master," she answers. Voice unsteady and muffled by the blanket, her breath coming in fast, nervous pants, her words are bolder than their delivery. Deciding to face this new experience head on as she does most frightening things, she licks her lips nervously and reaches back to hold her ass cheeks open as instructed, determined to relax the muscles that only clench in response.

Gently, he brushes damp strands of hair from her face, placing them behind her ear, the touch of his fingertips sending her into a daze. "Look," he says, to observers, though his eyes never leave her face. "Look how she awaits my pleasure. Are you ready, Pet?" he inquires. "Ready for something new?"

Claiming her own readiness for this would be a lie, Kara decides. But she knows she will survive it, because no matter how callous this Mon-El can be, there's still a soft heart in there, buried under the layers of hard shells he's built to protect it. The man she knew in the outside world, wasn't just born because they met, and he wasn't just created because she inspired him to goodness. That goodness was always in there, all she did was let him know it was safe to be himself.

"I'm ready," she breathes, sucking her lower lip into her mouth and squeezing her eyes shut.

It makes her look so child-like when she sucks on her lower lip, the way babies suck on thumbs to self-soothe. Ass presented, he presses the lubricated ball of the hook against the tight rim of her sphincter and pushes. When it doesn't give right away, he's forced to apply more pressure until the rim relents beneath the pressure.

" _Aaaaggggmmhhhmmm_ ," she cries out and then forces her mouth tightly closed, her body stiffening against the invasion. Even if her mind says she's ready for this, her body has other ideas and so requires some brute force to comply. Not strictly designed for entrance, her rectum expectedly fights against the intrusion, panting heavily and grimacing at the tearing pain – until the lubricated silver ball pops its way in, the drawstring closing in around the implement once it's fully lodged inside of her.

"You made that harder than it needed to be," he grumbles, displaying open disappointment in her, and the way her body fought him.

"I'm sorry, Master. I didn't mean to," she apologizes, her heart sinking at the tone in his voice.

Deftly, his fingers tightly tie the cables from the circlet at the top of the hook to the leash anchor on the back of her collar, to hold the contraption in place from the top. "Stand up," he orders, stepping away from her. "Climb on to the bed. Face the room. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," Kara nods, surprised when the movement of her head sends tendrils of sensation from her anus to other parts of her body. She gasps as she places her hands on the bed and lifts her knee to crawl upon it, and then with each subsequent move. Cool silver metal of the hook slips between the cheeks of her ass and she arches her back at the shock of it, which drives it, ever so slightly, deeper inside.

"Wait until you feel my cock in there with it," the prince grins, easily reading the expressions on her face as she tries to determine the difference between pain and pleasure. Sensations which, for her, are harder to discern than for others. "Hands and knees," he instructs. "I want everyone to see the look on your face when I'm driving into you. And because I have a surprise for you, if you're a good girl. Would you like that?"

With that incentive, she's determined now more than ever to be a good girl. "Yes, Master," she nods, streaks of sensations from her anus making her cunt wet for him. "I can be good." Her lips tremble, arms and legs shaking with exhaustion as she near her breaking point. She won't speak the word he wants to hear from her, but Kara knows the next time she loses consciousness, she won't be so easy to rouse.

Mon-El climbs onto the bed behind her, crawling between her knees and, without even teasing her wet entrance with the head of his cock, drives his aching steel into her fiery core. It steals her breath when he fills her, so tight he's touching every part of her. The sensation of the ball against the top of his member drives him nearly to madness as he shoves inside of her tight heat. In a seemingly uncharacteristic show of gentleness, the prince gives them both a few moments to adjust to these new sensations. Grabbing her hips, he gently pulses his cock in and out of her in short increments, withdrawing no more than an inch before sliding back in with an excruciating slowness.

After a few moments, Mon-El's tiny pulses become wholly unsatisfying, so Kara attempts to lean forward when he pulls back, increasing the distance between them. Pushing back with her arms, she then manages to meet his penetration with greater force, stealing a small measure of satisfaction for herself. Fully aware of what she's doing, Mon-El generously gives Kara her lead, rewarding her with a few well-timed smacks on her bottom. Keeping her head and neck straight, Kara prevents the hook from jostling, which causes her hair to drape in front of her, thereby spoiling the view for the audience, so Mon-El reaches for that lustrous mane and roughly yanks her head back.

Kara cries out, the pain from having her hair pulled sending messages to her brain telling her lungs to stop breathing and her heart to race in her chest. "Yes!" she croaks, biting down on her lower lip, unable to force her words to speak louder. "Please!"

"Don't you want them to see your face when I'm fucking you," he growls, his pelvis spanking her ass, balls colliding with her clit.

"Yes, Master," she slurs, in between thrusts.

Slowing his thrusts, he uses her hair as leverage, the other hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise, he pulls out of her and then pushes back in, never slipping out. He watches his dick with each withdrawal and then plunge, enjoying the way her bottom jiggles when it collides with his abdomen, and the way it blushes when he smacks it.

Abruptly, Mon-El sits back on his haunches bringing her with him, and the change in angle shifts the ball of the anal hook, putting her in a state of near nirvana, egged on by both of his hands cupping her sore breasts. " _Aaannnggghhh_ ," she moans, her head falling back on his shoulder, her back arching as he bounces her on his cock. Unable to do anything more but feel, Kara lets go, simply allowing him to fuck her senseless, turning her head into his neck as his cock claims her. " _Uunngghh…uunngghh…uunngghh_ …" she grunts with each thrust, praying that his own energy levels are dwindling to the point of exhaustion. By all appearances, he seems to have found his second wind, and if that's the case, she may be in deep trouble.

This can't go on much longer, he realizes. Feeling her go slack against him, "Still with me?" he asks. The prince slaps her face to bring her back around. Can't have her passing out again too soon.

Incomprehensible words slur from her mouth and Kara's barely able to hold her eyes open against the onslaught of sensation, despite the sharp sting his hand left on her cheek. Her inner muscles clamp down around his cock, as if to let him know she's still in the driver's seat, though on sensory overload. "Don't stop."

"Your pussy's so wet," he tells her, his dirty words a seduction. "You're dripping all over the bed," he whispers in to her ear, still fucking her, his pace reducing to an excruciatingly slow wave of shallow thrusts. He widens his knees, spreading hers in the process, opening her more fully to his thrusts. "I knew you were a dirty girl the first moment I laid eyes on you." Only the flash of her kneeling before him in a servant's dress, her lustrous hair wound in a messy turban, comes to his mind. "Knew you'd get my cock so wet."

He knows there's more, knows there's history between them, but it's like a dream that slips away moments after waking. He knows there were emotions, softness, but all that remains is the primal translation to the physical – the need to put his stamp on her. To give in to those emotions, the ones that Ral claims are what life is all about – but that's just too _hard_ and promises only pain. This is so much easier. Just fuck. No messy complications.

Except that he knows now – concedes – that this is a challenge he won't win. He could push her further, but he no longer has the stamina, his overconfidence driving him to spend his energies too quickly and too…ardently. His concubine's will, it appears, is unbreakable like Nth metal, though he can hardly hazard a guess as to why he might be so important to her that she would choose _this_ over an easy exit from this hellish place. She said she wanted to see what he had been hiding and that is what he's giving her now, in all of his worthlessness. He is Fool's Gold, shiny enough to catch the eye, but scratch the surface and…nothing but iron.

Determined to finish this, for both of their sakes, he plucks her nipples between his thumbs and index fingers. "Open your eyes," he instructs, "and look at your admirers."

Opening her eyes, forced out of a place where it is just the two of them, Kara casts her eyes about the room. With a few notable suggestions, their audience appears to have exhausted itself with their salacious activities, most draped naked over their lounge chairs, sipping on goblets of restorative, while feeding each other grapes as though it's the Daxam equivalent of popcorn. Lady Max, apparently not one to miss an opportunity (and clearly desperate to stay young and desirable), rides the cock of a thin man lying the on the floor while in reverse cowgirl position, facing away from him, her hands on his knees. Lord Ral sits in his lounge chair, no less aroused than before, if the tent in the crotch of his pants is any indication. Kara's eyes meet his, and her cunt involuntarily clamps down on her master's toiling cock. " _Mmmmm_ ," she moans, her tongue snaking out to moisten dry lips.

Her gaze holds Ral's for a long time, and her physical reaction does not go unnoticed. Sliding one hand up her to her neck, the prince's thumb finds her carotid artery and presses down, effectively decreasing the blood flow to her brain. His other hand slides downwards, middle finger dipping into the wide seam of her clutch to flick the swollen bundle of nerves at it apex. "I promised you a surprise if you were good," he teases. "Have you been good?"

His finger flicking her clit nearly causes her to hit the ceiling. "Master!" she shrieks as the shock spreads throughout her body, stiffening her joints like an electrical discharge. With each jarring of her body, especially her head and neck, the metal hook inserted to her anus and tied to the back of her collar, seems to wedge tighter between the cheeks of her ass, causing the ball to slip deeper inside. "I won't come. I won't come. I promise!" she pants. " _Mmmmm_ …I've been good! I've been so good."

"I'm going to let you come, Pet," he informs her, taking a moment to bite down on her ear lobe. "But when you do…you won't cry out for that Kryptonian god of yours, do you hear me? You'll cry out the only name that matters…you have my permission. You'll tell everyone in the room—everyone in the palace—who…and what you are."

"Yes, Master," she moans, knowing exactly what she will say. A thrill passes through her as she imagines saying the words out loud.

"And if I think you do a good job, I'll let you have your surprise," he promises. Applying pressure to her throat, his thrusts deepen as his fingers speed their attention to her clit.

" _Mmmmmm_ ," she hums long and low, her muscles contracting in anticipation of implosion. Beyond the innate desire for orgasm, Kara longs to stay in this moment forever, to freeze it for all time; the sensation of being filled – completed – by him, his powerful abs pressing into her ass, while her back planes against his chest. Tight straps of her harness press into her skin with each breath, reminding her that she belongs to him, while his hand on her throat drives the point home. Skillful fingers, flicking at her clit, slow and then faster, bringing her to the brink and then drawing back, letting her know that her climax is at his discretion.

Kara's breasts, bloated by battery and the compression of the harness, bounce up and down in time to his thrusts. Well aware of the twenty-eight pairs of eyes trained to her bouncing breasts, her cunt pummeled into complete submission, and wearing the wrecked look of someone used far beyond the point of mere pleasure, Kara has never felt this vulnerable in her entire life. She has never allowed herself to feel this vulnerable. In the outside, she has lived an entire life in fear of being _seen_ – but now she hides nothing, she has no secrets and it is liberating.

He owns every part of her, yet it sets her free; an incongruity that can only make sense to those who experience it. He owns her clutch and the wetness of it, he owns her breasts that rise to his attention, he owns her mouth that speaks the words of his desire, and he owns her climax, which waits upon his command. He owns all of her, except the one thing that truly matters.

The choice to surrender is hers, and always has been. No matter how rough or how unhinged, or how unlike _her_ Mon-El this man seems, he never impinges upon her choice or questions her ability to make it. Assuring Kara that, deep down, he is still the man she fell in love with.

No sooner does Mon-El whisper the word into her ears, his fingers pinching her clit, then she explodes, her vision going black around the edges.

"Mon-El! Mon-El…." Kara's neck bows back against his shoulder, taut cords of tendons showing beneath the skin as every part of her feels the excruciating pleasure of release. Mouth opening to scream, her breath is stolen as her greedy pussy clamps down on his cock like a vise, her rectum tightening around the ball of the anal hook, exponentially increasing her pleasure. Wishing to hold him inside, her pussy prepares to suck him dry of the endless amounts of seed his body produces. Even if only on a subconscious level, her body yearns for it…craves it.

By relentlessly continuing to hammer the searing heat of her clenching core, he extends her climax, renewing it with each thrust of his cock deep into her rippling passage. Pushing her forward with a bump of his chest, he changes the angle of entry, holding her body out in front him, his hands roughly cupping her breasts to hold her aloft, and adding the sting of his hips slapping against her ass to the myriad sensations that flow through them both. With her head thrown back, through the slits of her eyes, Kara catches sight of them in the mirror; she is both the ship he captains, and the figurehead carved on its prow.

"Tell them who you are," he reminds her finally, his teeth gritted with the pleasure of pounding her needy heat.

Thanks to the ball stretching and tugging at her rectum, as well as the monster cock that dominates her other hole, it's the orgasm that never ends. Just when she expects it to taper off her master changes the angle or adds a hip twist or changes the speed of his thrust and sparks another wave of pleasure. When at last her lungs can hold air again, her ability to speak returns, words rushing forth like the water of a broken dam.

"I _mmmmmmm_ K-Kara…Zor-El," she moans, her voice stilted from the continual thrusts of his cock. To make it easier on her, her master changes his pace, retreating from her heat in a leisurely withdrawal, her pussy clasping at his dick, begging him to stay, but gaining no purchase on the steel, slick with both their juices. Answering her body's pleas, the prince pushes back into her with exquisitely staggering force, and then begins his slow recession again. "Mon-El of…Daxam…is my…. _mmmmmmaster_ ," she pants. Kara gasps as he proves her words, administering an extra sharp entry as punctuation. For good measure, she adds, "I am his Kryptonian whore."

"Kryptonian whore," she hears several voices echo in agreement amongst the crowd. Their tone suggests that her surrender to sexual freedom proves there might be hope for Kryptonians everywhere. Not spoken with derision or judgement as she might hear in the outside world, the word carries the note of congratulations, of reverence even, as though she is a lucky one. And in many ways, she feels as though she is. Lady Breck licks her lips, the heated embers of envy flaring to life in her amber eyes.

Kara imagines the thrust immediately following, the head of cock bucking her cervix, is one of possessive pride. " _Fuck me, Master_!" she urges in response to another satisfying thrust, tossing a smug smile at the jealous woman in front of her. Hearing her master's growls of effort behind her, she sees his determination in the mirrors, the diamond-hard glint of ownership in his eyes. Pride fills her chest, a shiver running down her spine. "He can use my body as he pleases," she announces. He squeezes her bruised tits, and she tilts her head to gaze at Lord Ral, torn between feeling the joy of being owned by her master, and feeling sad that a man who clearly cares for her must watch another man take ownership of her. Wishing to send him a message warning him not to let his heart get too deeply involved, she claims, "My pleasure is his to command."

With one hand, her master releases her breast and wraps his fingers under the collar, leaning back to offset her forward weight shift, he rides her briefly like a bucking bronco. Less supported by his hands on her breasts, the dropping of her own body weight tightens the collar around her neck, restricting her airflow. Gasping for air, blood rushing to her face, her instinct to save herself clamors to kick in, but she must trust her master. Prove to him that she trusts him to take care of her. Before her hands can reach down for the mattress to relieve the pressure from her neck, she forces her hands in the other direction, clasping them behind her back.

Rewarding his Kryptonian for her show of trust, Mon-El heaves her back until she's upright again, her shoulder blades against his chest, releasing the collar. Settling her on his cock, pausing his thrusts, he watches as she drags air into her lungs until it seems they might burst. When her body melts against his, her cells infused once more with oxygen, he grabs her chin and turns her face. Taking her mouth with his, their tongues tangle with each other in a filthy, open-mouthed kiss that leaves no questions regarding his whore's willingness to be right where she is.

When the kiss ends, her breath still heaving, she asks, "Did I please you, Master?" Her eyes closed, her body replete with mind-bending satisfaction, she's ready to sleep for days.

"You did very well, Pet," he answers, the compliment in his voice genuine. "Are you ready for your surprise?"

"But you didn't come, Master," she points out, selflessly wishing for his pleasure before she takes more for herself.

Something twinges in his chest – in the vicinity of his heart, but he shuts it down before it can blossom into something larger. His cock and balls have been clamoring for release, but he holds it at bay, hoping that one massive orgasm will be enough to deplete what remains of his energies at this point, and that would be the ultimate relief. Though he suspects this orgiastic challenge has served to do nothing more than whet his appetite for her, rather than stem it. "I know," he says, running his mouth across the slope of her shoulder. Without instruction, she tilts her head, offering him better access as he places his lips on her and sucks the tender flesh into his mouth.

He's going to leave his master's mark on her, drawing on her flesh as though he plans to devour her. At first, the warm sensation of his tongue and lips on her is soothing, but when he begins to suck, harder and harder, as though trying to draw her blood through the skin, the sharp pain of it sending electricity shooting to her core, jolting her pussy into fisting around him. Those muscles are tired, so tired, and used far beyond the average experience, but they still dance to his tune.

"I'm saving up a big one for you, Pet," he vows, after pulling away and admiring the brand on her neck. "Are you ready for your surprise?"

"Yes, Master."

"On your hands and knees," he instructs, setting her off his dick and pushing her forward with a more playful slap on her ass. She huffs in disappointment, as though losing access to his dick was not part of any scenario she considered. "Edge of the bed."

Crawling to the edge of the humongous bed, she turns back to look at him, the hook wedging into her cheeks, the powerful muscles of her rectum quivering around the ball until she gasps. Quickly, Kara grows accustomed to the sensation of the drawstring rim of her anus tightening delectably around the cool, slim rod of the hook. In no time, her body craves the feeling of the metal ball shifting in her depths with each twitch of her privates. "Fuck!" she squeaks and turns her head forward to ease the tension on the line.

"Close your eyes and open your mouth," he commands, the undeniable authority in his voice sending a shiver down her spine.

When she complies, she feels the dip release from the bed as her master climbs off. Following his instructions to the letter, she waits and wonders what will happen next. Perhaps he will feed her more delicious berries, command her to eat from his hand like a well-trained beast, but first she feels the soft silk of a blindfold covering her eyes, as nimble hands tie it at the back of her head.

"Stick out your tongue."

She hears a rustling she can't identify, and the mystery of it merely serves to heighten her anticipation. Convinced that she is about to feel the cool, tart burst of a berry on her tongue, she's confused when she feels the warm, salty taste of a thumb. His thumb pets her tongue, as though stirring her taste buds to awaken and she's so aroused by the promise of it she tilts her head up to ask for more. The resulting movement of the anal hook urges her to spread her knees further apart to give the implement more space to maneuver, allowing it to slip provocatively deeper into her dark recesses.

" _Mmmmmmm_ ," she moans, her lips inadvertently clamping around the thumb in her mouth. And in the next breath, she's sucking on the thumb as he draws it in and out of her mouth, a soft imitation of fellatio. " _Mmmmmm_ ," she moans again. When the thumb suddenly disappears, she opens her mouth again, "Give me, Master," she pleads, like a baby bird looking for its worm. She's desperate to taste his cum on her tongue, to feel how it gathers in the back of her throat right before it glides down like a salty oyster.

"Mouth open," he reminds her, as the bed dips again behind her.

Kara fights the disappointment that flares inside of her, as she senses him perch between her spread knees. Reminding herself that she will be happy for Master's cock any way he is willing to bestow it, she wriggles her ass a little, welcoming him with her wet pussy, cum from earlier encounters sticky on her thighs.

"Can't get enough, huh?" he asks, the tinge of exhaustion mixed with mischief in his voice.

"Whores can't get enough," she reminds him with a whisper of impending victory. Though, the truth is, she won a long time ago.

"Mouth open," he corrects, with a hard slap to her flank. With a smug smile, she complies, turning her head away from him.

Her verbal victory dance is cut short when something hot and hard lands on her tongue, just as her master's cock pushes its way into her hungry core. A hand, not her master's, fists in her hair, tilting her head back to open her mouth further as a thick cock pushes its way past her lips.

At first, Kara's ingrained instinct is to back away, but she can't because her master's broad bulk is behind her. As he withdraws from her heat and slams back in, his penetration pushes her forward onto the silk steel taking her mouth. Despite the fear of unanswered questions, her cunt already grips involuntarily around Master, and she doesn't know if it's because of the way he owns her, or because the of taste of salty pre-cum on her tongue.

"Cry Mercy?" he taunts, spanking her ass with the next plunge of his cock.

"Mmmm-nnnnn," she refuses the offer, shaking her head around the intruding member. This close to victory…there's no way she'll quit. If anyone knows how to dig their heels in, it's Kara Zor-El Danvers, or at least that's what Alex says.

"You're so wet," the prince points out, only marginally disappointed, but mostly unsurprised by her stubbornness. "I know you like it. On Daxam, most senyas would rejoice in a cock or cunt freely offered by their master. "You don't want to be rude…do you, Kryptonian?"

"Mmmmm-nnnn," she shakes her head again, as the cock slips another inch into her mouth, her jaw opening wider to accommodate it. It's no small cock. Thankfully, not as large as her master's artificially augmented phallus, but at least as well-endowed as the original recipe. Kara's torn between wanting to know whose cock is in her mouth, her own personal hope, and fear of the answer revealed. Nervously embracing her new Daxamite outlook, she closes her lips tightly around the cock, sealing her tongue with the underside and allowing her salivary glands to kick in, she sets to work.

With her master pummeling her from behind it isn't easy, but Kara catalogues everything she can with her tongue, careful to avoid hitting him with her teeth. Something seems odd about it, but she can't quite put the pieces together with her master pounding into her hard enough to hit all the right spots. Reaching up with her hand, Kara fumbles for his sack, rolling the testicles between her fingers, earning a panting breath from him. That's all she hears, heavy breathing; not a moan and not a groan, nothing that might serve as clue to his identity. And most of those sounds are drowned out by the soundtrack provided by her master's pelvis smacking into her ass, his hand slapping her flank periodically, and his growls of satisfaction. Moving up, she circles her fingers around the thick base of his shaft, and then pulls him from her mouth.

"Guess," her master commands. "Guess on the first try, and he'll remove the blindfold."

Taking him in hand, she pumps the shaft a few times, attempting to get a good feel for the thing, picturing the many dicks she's seen throughout the evening. Right away she can rule out the portly man in the back, thank Rao! Far too long. And too thick to be the Viceroy Bak'rum who likes to be dangled from ceilings. Then there's the hands in her hair, Kara realizes as she eliminates another option – too gentle to be Commander-Lord Raines. There was something about the cock when he first put it into her mouth that struck her as odd and now she comprehends what it means. She knows who the mystery guest is.

Opening her mouth, Kara takes him back in, now certain that her choice is the correct one and enjoying the blindfold since it no longer serves as a threat to her. Her master plunges and plunges, and now that she knows to whom the cock in her mouth belongs, Kara is freer to revel in the sensations of having two cocks inside of her. _"Mmmmmmm_ ," she hums, hollowing her cheeks as she works his dick in and out, sucking the shaft to draw forth the 'Milk of Val-Or'. " _Mmmmmmmm."_

"Vartine," her master accuses, spanking her ass hard, causing her to jolt at the sting of it. "Have you a guess, or not?" he demands.

Kara circles the shaft with her hand again and pulls it free. "My Lord Ral," she announces, a confident smile spreading on her face.

He whips the blindfold from her head, and she tilts her head up to find him smiling down at her. "How long have you known?"

Kara happily pumps his cock by hand, sly smile on her face, alternately squeezing it as she looks up in his face. Master alters his tempo, slowing down to hear her answer. "I've seen every man in this room get his cock wet this evening. Except for two. You and the servant. The cock put in my mouth was bone dry except for the beads of cum on the head. Fifty-fifty shot," she says. "I liked my odds. Besides weren't you the one that said, 'what's his is his and what's his is sometimes mine?'"

"Yes," he chuckles, eyes drifting partially closed at the pleasure of being handled by her. "I knew you were smart the first moment I laid eyes on you. And that you would own me, my darling Kara."

"My Lord?" she asks.

"Yes?" he answers, stroking the silky strands of her hair.

"Will you come in my mouth?"

Her eyes are so blue and wide and open, he knows he cannot deny her, even if it were in him do so. "As my lady commands," he croaks, sighing with pleasure when she replaces her hand with the warm cavern of her mouth, and sucks deeply on the shaft, as though trying to draw his seed to the surface.

She works her mouth diligently over the shaft, bobbing her head in time to offset Master increasingly rough thrusts. Her pussy clenches as she pictures the memory of Ral – sitting, watching, and waiting. As if he knew he would get his turn.

Ral usually gets his turn, at least once. That's how it's always been with them. There's never been an ounce of jealously between them when it came to sex or anything else important. Since they were small children, out of necessity, it's been them against the world. But now he watches the Kryptonian whore give his bond-brother a blow job he could almost imagine being envious of, were he not busy fucking the daylights out of her pussy. Why can't he get enough of her? It would be so easy to blame this frenzy on the Callus Band, and a huge part of him wants to just get it off, get it off, get it off, so he can just have a few moments to think clearly. But he senses that, deep down, it's more than that.

"Grife!" he curses angrily, taking it out on her by leaning forward and tweaking her nipple.

" _Mmmmmm_ ," she moans in a most satisfying way.

It's not the Callus Band that makes him want to take, to fuck, to bite, to suck, to taste, to brand…to breed. It's something about _her_ , and that's something he needs to be careful about. Especially if she's to be his concubine from now on, available at his beck and call. He will have to take care to be extra detached, to remind her often and with vigor that she's just a breathing pleasure toy. He will not allow _feelings_ to play a role. Just the thought of the word, brings a bad taste to back of his throat.

"Not so gently, Ral," he demands, gripping her hips tight and yanking her back on his soaking dick. "Fuck her mouth. This Kryptonian likes it rough."

" _Mmmm-hmmmm_ ," she hums emphatically.

Assured that Kara is fully onboard, Ral reaches behind his neck and pulls his shirt off, tossing it to the side before fisting both hands in the mess of her hair and arranging her head in a position optimal for him. Globs of her spit lubricate them both as he takes control and begins fucking her mouth, the head of his dick hitting the back of her throat and knocking her tonsils. Ral's torn between throwing his head back and getting lost in the divine pleasure of it, and observing every tic, every expression on her face.

The size of her lord's cock is ample, so she gags around him when he invades her throat. Kara does what she can to push back against the reflex, meeting his thrusts with a gargle of saliva as though attempting to expel him, and opening her mouth wider to accommodate his girth. A sudden thrust from behind propels her forward, forcing her to deep throat her lord's cock and causing her eyes to sting and well with tears.

Spit-roasted between them, she relaxes into it, eyes drifting closed as she surrenders any remaining control, the men finding a rhythm that allows them to work together. Her master fucks her pussy in carefully measured strokes, and she can sense his exhaustion, feel his sweat raining down on her lower back. Clenching her inner muscles around his cock, she enjoys the deeps groan that results and does it again, clamping down on him as he retreats from her heat.

"Gods!" Lord Ral curses, hissing in the way that men do when their physical pleasure takes them by surprise. "You look so good taking my cock." Every inch of her flawless skin is incandescent with satisfaction. Unlike others of her kind who hide behind science and politics, this Kryptonian was made for pursuits of the carnal variety. Sex…wakes her up and her body, exhausted as it is, operates at peak condition.

" _Arrrggghhh_ ," she gargles, his dick forcing its way past her tonsils. With each thrust, her nose butts up against the nest of blonde short hairs in which his shaft is rooted.

"You like that?" he inquires, though it's not really a question. "You want more?"

His feelings for her…so clear in his eyes… are frightening and so unexpected they bowl her over every time she looks at him.

Unlike Mon-El, whose need for control in a world that gives him so little threatens to overwhelm him, Ral accepted long ago that attempting to control the uncontrollable is time wasted. But, soft emotions or not, Ral is a man and there's just something about dominating a lover who thrives on the power exchange of surrender and submission. It gets into one's bones; sets fire to the blood. Which is why the sight of her, submissive to their cocks, putty in their hands, tears streaming down a face that's already been sex-wrecked for hours, is enough to cause his balls to tighten. Streaks of electricity race up his spine to the base of his skull and then wrap around his face, clamping his jaw closed. "Fuck!" he grates outs.

" _Arrrrggghhh_!"

"I'm going to come in your mouth," he groans through gritted teeth while speeding his thrusts, a promise and a warning. He bites down on his lower lip as the need to burst swamps him. "Oh, gods!" he growls, hips pumping, "here it comes…get ready."

" _Aarrrrggghh_ ," she gargles, this time the pitch higher, more excited. Each wet glide of Mon-El's cock from behind forces a tiny sigh from her chest as she moves forward on Ral's cock.

It's the bright blue eyes silently begging for his climax, tears squeezing out of their corners as she looks up at him, that push him over the edge. His orgasm rises past the point of no return, every muscle in his body pulling taut, his hands holding her head in place as streams of cum burst forth, torrents of milky white fluid flooding the back of her throat. From the transcendent look on her face, Ral gathers that he has nothing to feel bad about.

Drowning in cum, Kara chokes on it at first, even though she is expecting it. She doesn't understand why, but the notion of taking a man's seed – no matter how – of being the reason he falls apart, fills her soul with something soft and warm. So, she swallows and swallows, gulping down his flood of salty cream, looking up into his angel-face contorted with sexual bliss, and tries to project gratitude and completion with her eyes. When another wave of cum hits, and then another, she gulps what she can, small streams of excess leaking from the sides of her mouth and dribbling down her chin.

When he finishes with her, and before she can wipe the dribbles of cum from her chin, her master reaches for her collar and pulls her back against him, the cock pounding her pussy hardly skipping a beat. "Did you like that, Pet? Did you like the taste of his cum?"

"Yes, Master," she smiles, the flavor of Lord Ral's emission still in her mouth. Her own orgasm closer and closer to fruition with each pump of his hips. Kara fears not being able to hold it at bay. "Will you take your pleasure now?" she offers, using the Daxamite term.

Sensing the approach of her climax, Mon-El stills his thrusts, only allowing a shallow penetration of his shaft into her heat. "My cock is being…difficult," he explains. "That means we're near the end now and I will need to use every last bit of energy to finish. I will become a brute in your eyes," he warns, unsure why the thought of her bad opinion bothers him so much all of the sudden. He forces the feelings down. "But you asked for it, remember? You who wanted to see the man I've been hiding," he reminds her, his breath hot against her ear, snapping her collar so that her neck bows backwards. "The time to cry mercy is now. Once I begin, I won't be able to stop. Try not to pass out before I'm done with you because I will finish inside of you whether you're conscious or not."

Not even the tiniest bit frightened and, frankly, elated by the idea of seeing the animal inside, she replies, "I serve for your pleasure, Master."

Mon-El growls, his insides raging as his resolve breaks, and in the next breath reforms into a new one. "You are mine now," he responds, his grip tightening on her collar as a reminder. "Mine to use as I please, when I please, and how I please. I will take pains to remind you of this every day, several times a day, so that you never forget." His next promise is one he knows he will regret making, even as the words spills out involuntarily. "I will never let you go."

Thrilled by her victory, Kara decides to play it cool, for once. "As you wish," she sighs, licking her dry lips. Her body quivers excitement, anticipation and…is this exhaustion she's experiencing? She's witnessed many humans collapse under the weight of exhaustion when their bodies are simply tapped of all energy. According to Alex, it's normal for humans to experience the kind of weariness that comes with uncontrollably quivering muscles after a trauma, when the adrenaline that saw them through it finally drains off.

Before she can spend another moment pondering upon it, she's cheek-side down on the bed, her ass on full and wide display. The cord attaching the anal hook to the back of her collar strains at its limit, stressing her puckered rim with a metal ball that threatens to barrel its way through. She never realized how many nerve endings the rectum had that seem designed to provide an intense mixture of both pleasure and pain. " _Uuuunnnnngghh_ ," Kara grunts, sucking her lower lip into her mouth. She finds herself squeezing that rim tightly, hoping to keep the ball tucked inside.

Ral observes from the end of the bed, his own legs still quaking from the power of his orgasm, uncertain quite how Mon-El has lasted this long, chalking it up to his genetically enhanced stamina, and what is clearly an unquenchable thirst for Kara. It's curious that Mon-El thinks he's the one that owns her, when it seems quite the other way around from Ral's perspective. Knowing his prince as he does, Ral knows that somewhere deep inside Mon-El can sense it, which is why he must punish her for it. Which means, of course, there are feelings he doesn't wish to face.

As Mon-El bends her over, ass high in the air, one hand pressing her head into the mattress while the other guides his cock into her willingly subjugated cunt, Ral wishes he could be the one slamming into her. Wishes he could go easy, draw out her pleasure, add the balance to Mon-El's brute force. Kneeling on the bed's platform, he bends the upper half of his body onto the bed, lining his head up with hers.

Sensing a presence there, Kara opens her eyes, her blue meeting the forest of his green eyes. When Master's thrust causes a curtain of hair to fall in front of her face, obstructing her view, her lord's hand reaches out to gently push it back. She smiles wearily at him amid the onslaught of the monster cock pounding into her.

Her left hand clutches the coverlet, pawing at it like a fascinated kitten, so his right hand covers it, their fingers fumbling until they intertwine. In him, she finds her anchor to this plane of existence as her body begins to tense and quake and quiver. So accustomed to fighting the release, she bites down hard on her lower lip in an effort to belay the inevitable force building in the very core of her.

He cups the back of her head, brushing against Mon-El's hand, Ral's gentleness in competition with the prince's force, as he leans in and covers her mouth with his. Upside down, he sucks her bruised and swollen lower lip into his mouth, tasting himself on her without care, sipping at that flavor as though it's an irresistible drug. When he releases her lower lip, his tongue dips into her mouth, meeting hers in a lazy introduction incongruous to the heated onslaught perpetrated upon the rest of her body. He gets to know her mouth and she lets him, his tongue examining the parts of her it can reach.

If Master is the Storm, then Lord Ral is the Eye, the center that brings stillness and tranquility, yet promises to leave unpredictable damage in its wake. It's tranquil in the bubble of their kiss, but on the outside, two bodies clash and thrust, smack, grunt and curse.

"Don't hold back," Lord Ral instructs her, his face close enough that she can feel his breath, his fingers toying with her hair. "When you come I want to taste your cries on my tongue."

When she comes apart, his mouth covers hers again, her cries vibrating through him. " _Ohhhhhhrrrrrmmmmmm_ ," she groans, her vision exploding into stars, her brain turning into a foggy mush as all her energies collect and explode between her legs.

Mon-El rides the convulsions of her inner walls, gripping her hips with bruising force as her passage becomes a closed fist, clasping at his cock when he tries to retreat. Her body wants him to stay deep inside while she ripples around him, but then mounts a defense, narrowing her passage when his cock slams back in. Ignoring her body's pleas, he becomes a battering ram, decimating her meager rebuffs with fierce and zealous thrusts.

As a result of his determination, his unwillingness to kowtow to her body's demands, he sparks another series of rippling convulsions, her body stiffening beneath him as though attempting to curl in on itself. But he won't allow it. Mon-El holds her body in place, even as she tries to shy away from the excruciating, overwhelming pleasure she feels.

With Lord Ral's mouth on hers and a tsunami of orgasms bearing down upon her, Kara finds it impossible to breathe. So intense is the pleasure tearing through her, so primal, she would beg him to stop if she thought him capable. But her master is long past that, just as he warned. Very little man left in him, if any at all, he throws off the mantle of civilization and returns to the cave, embracing his own barbarity. Sensing her difficulty breathing, her lord pulls away from mouth, allowing her to suck in much needed air. But the sudden influx of oxygen has the opposite desired effect, causing her head to lighten and an already topsy-turvy world to spin. Squeezing Lord Ral's fingers hard between her own, she barely manages to anchor herself to consciousness.

"Such a good girl," she hears Lord Ral say. Kara manages to answer with the whisper of a lopsided smile.

So close to the end, Mon-El is beset upon once more with the breed-delirium – the primitive urge to plant one's seed and see it take root. Incapable of forming cohesive thoughts, or promising to fill her with his innumerable progeny, his mind can only make jumbled images of her swollen belly, fucking her hugely pregnant body, and of holding a squirming, squalling infant, its tiny arms and legs pumping. He grips at the leather straps of her harness for more leverage. Faster and harder, faster and harder, her pussy drawing him in, torturing his seed from him like an irresistible Vartine risen from The Crimson Sea. Fuck her…breed her…love her…breed her…fuck her…breed her….

Until finally, it happens almost without warning – or the warning passed so quickly as to go unnoticed amid the clamor of unending sensation. She comes once more, squirting her juices against his cock, and then his entire body seizes.

" _Mmmmmaaaahhhhh_ ," she sobs, as her inner muscles, defying their own exhaustion, are forced to entrap his cock in a hold so tight she fears it might never unclench.

" _Fuckfuckfuckfuck_!" he screams, finding his words, or at least one of them, as his cock tries to empty itself with torturous determination. Cock held deep inside, he spurts his cum, ensuring that his seed will water the deepest parts of her womb. Scraping wisps of strength from the very bottom of the barrel, he draws back no more than an inch, a wind-up, before slamming back in, his back arching, his neck bowing, another stream of cum staking its claim.

Kara sobs with the contentment of it. He tried to send her away, to put up walls, only to tear down hers. She faced fears, she took risks because of him, and she stood up to all of them, without powers. And now she's won, his control has snapped and she never cried mercy once. Never thought about using the portal.

His orgasm goes on and on, until her pussy goes slack and can no longer stand up to his final thrusts. Seven more times he pulls back and drives back in, each time he thinks it's the last, and each time he leaves a long and agonizingly pleasurable gush of viscous fluids. Fluid now so copious it spills out from her cunt each time his dick squeezes back in with a wet squelch. " _Aaagggghhhhh_ ," he groans, defeated, at what must be the longest and final burst.

Grayness closes in on his vision as he slides his cock out of her and collapses onto the bed without bothering to break his fall with his arms. Through drooping eyelids, he catches sight of his reflection on the ceiling, a wasted man so owned he can't look at himself in the mirror without turning away. With a hiss and pop, the Callus Band disengages and slithers down to rest in a tangle on the mattress between his legs. Instantly, Mon-El feels the sense of relief wash over him as his penis begins to contract and soften, the compulsion to fuck seeping away.

"Thank the gods," he manages, almost as if he believes in them, just as darkness overtakes him. If he were hydrated enough, he might even cry with relief.

Kara lasts marginally longer than he does, which she considers an additional victory. Collapsing to her side as soon as his grip loosened, she manages to roll onto her back. After a moment, her breath finally slowing, she feels the lovely, warm sensation of a washcloth between her thighs. Unable to lift her head, she opens her eyes enough to see Lord Ral in the ceiling mirror, wiping her body clean like a servant. She makes no protest as he dips the cloth in a bowl of sweet-smelling perfumed water of some kind, and wipes down her arms, her legs, her breasts, and finally her face. Careful to get every inch of her face, the warm, wet cloth wiping away the sweat and tears and cum as though it's an act of divinity.

A thin blanket descends over her body, settling lightly against her sensitized skin before strong arms slip beneath her. In one smooth move, as though she weighs no more than a bag of feathers, he picks her up and holds her to his chest, taking her away from the bed, away from the room full of observers, and away from her exhausted master. "Thank you, my lord," she murmurs, tucking her head comfortably in the crook between his shoulder and neck, hoping to get the words out before sleep gains its foothold.

"Shhh," Ral soothes, his breath against her skin. "Sleep now, my darling Kara." He brushes the crown of her head with his full lips. "You'll need your strength," he says cryptically, "and every ounce of patience. It appears we have our work cut out for us if we want to free Mon-El from this place."

In the fog of satiation his words make little sense, only the feeling of safety, warmth and sanctuary of his arms getting through to her. She'll think about it later, she promises herself, her eyelids getting harder and harder to hold aloft. As his arms tighten around her, the soundtrack of his heart beating strongly in his chest lulls her into a restful sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

This story is extremely explicit and deals with BDSM themes that can be considered hard core. Please read responsibly. You have been warned.

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: The game is over, the victor decided. Now the real challenge begins. Welcome to The Prince's Chambers.

Chapter 13/?

Eyes struggle open several times before finally able to remain so. Kara doesn't know how many times her mind attempts to wake, three, perhaps four attempts before her body finally complies – in protest. Every part of her body is sore; aches and twinges inside and out reminding her that she's a sex slave, well used by a skilled and unflagging master.

Kara replays her memories of the night in the sex chancel, parts of her body already beginning to awaken in defiance of its worn state. Mon-El's memories had returned and he'd been none too pleased to have her poking about in his head, nor did he seem keen to leave, despite her control over the exit portal. Claiming that he was never the man she thought she knew, Kara challenged him to show her the man he truly is.

And show her he did!

Warning her that his memories of her from the outside world – his soft feelings for her – would fade sooner rather her later throughout their night in the chancel, his dire prediction had come to pass. Kara watched as the Mon-El she knew slipped further and further away, transitioning into a commanding autocrat caught up in slaking his lust for his Kryptonian captive.

Although, at times, when he was on top of her, moving deeply inside, she would gaze into his eyes and find a question there, as if he was wondering why she would surrender so much to him…for him. That same dark shadow of self-loathing she had seen in his eyes after Lillian Luthor took him hostage, and he'd wondered why Kara had bothered to rescue him. Kara knew then, beyond a doubt, that Daxam was the birthplace of that dark shadow and vowed that if she could find a way to erase it from his eyes forever, she would. She will free him…the way he has freed her from a life of self-repression. No matter what it takes.

As her Mon-El slipped away, to be replaced by her master, with each step of their challenge she met and matched his every desire, seeing him for who he truly was, and loving him all the same. Not only did Kara refuse to be intimidated by his sexual demands, she found herself increasingly aroused by them.

Each of the implements he used upon her and in her, titillated Kara further; the dynamic restraints that tied her to the bed, the rod used to spread her legs wide, and the metal beads used to test her rectum. At the point of near exhaustion, after hours of aggressive and often feral sex, he gifted her with the tight leather harness and silver collar, marking her as his and no other's, and then inserted the anal hook, affixing it to the back her collar, to stimulate and widen her dark recesses for purposes which Kara can only hazard a guess. Initially, the sight of the giant hook, with its large metal ball on the end, terrified her. But she resolved to face that fear and any accompanying pain with courage, and now the sensation of the hook, buried in her rear end and wedged between her ass cheeks, is something to which she not only grows accustomed but even welcomes.

Kara also considers perhaps the biggest surprise to her growth as a fully realized, highly sexualized being. Since sex on Daxam is more theatre than intimacy, there was the audience of more than two dozen people watching their every move, openly critiquing, and even enjoying their own carnal pursuits in the very same sanctum of sensuality. Their applause and approval, their lustful eyes barely concealing their desire to fuck her, and the vigor with which they quenched their own thirst upon each other, all aroused her in ways she never could have expected from herself. Especially the ultimate discovery that her emotional attachment to Mon-El, did not preclude physical and emotional connection to other people. Even harder than confessing to Mon-El her instant attraction to Lord Ral, was confessing that attraction to herself. Noticing her burgeoning enchantment with his angelic brother, her master rewarded her sexual evolution by allowing her to participate in her first threesome, in which she sucked Ral's cock while Master fucked her from behind.

It was an experience she would very much like to repeat, and perhaps expand upon.

The bond-brothers complement each other in many ways. While Mon-El takes what he wants, Ral employs charm and wit to seduce and cajole. While this Mon-El, the Mon-El with no recollection of their life together, suppresses his emotions behind the grey shield of his eyes, Ral's soft green eyes are windows to his soul. With very little effort, she could lose her heart to him, a prospect made substantially dangerous when taking into consideration that he is the avatar of a man long dead for thirty years now.

Reminded with her first move that she remains in her submissive harness and collar, and that the anal hook roots in place, Kara stretches her arms and legs hoping to ease the tension in her sore muscles. On the verge of unconsciousness when her master had exhausted himself, and thus deactivated the Callus Band keeping his artificially engorged cock erect, her second lover provided Kara with the simplest of sponge baths, and thus the aroma of sweat and sex only barely clings to her, like an afterthought. Gingerly, the hook tugging between her ass cheeks, Kara sits up, finding her most comfortable position on her knees, and takes stock of her surroundings. The last thing she remembers is Lord Ral carrying her from the chancel and after that…nothing. He must have brought her directly to this place, which is…a mystery.

Built into a rounded alcove – a giant window seat – her bed, it appears, is a generous and luxurious circular cushion, roughly king-sized, and laden with plush pillows in varying shades of green. Upon one wall are three floor-to-ceiling windows opened to let in light and fresh air and on its opposite, an arched egress hidden by an opaque curtain of shimmery orange. A small but cozy cloister, yard after yard of orange and seafoam green drapery panels hang from a round track on the ceiling above, meant to enclose her completely as needed, providing her some measure of privacy from pests, both human and insect. The curtain blows in the temperate breeze as if to add to the dreamy atmosphere, while two sconces on each side wall approximate muted candlelight – a panel near the entrance to allow for adjustment. Surrounded by breathtaking mosaic tilework in warm colors, it's easy to imagine that she's a genie, relegated to her bottle.

Throwing off her blanket, Kara scooches carefully to the end of the mattress and moves aside the curtain, revealing several steps down into a spacious balcony. Cautiously leaning over the balcony's railing, Kara sees the cavernous room in its entirety, from a story above. Wrapping around the entire room, each side of the balcony ends in a stone staircase that descends to the floor below, meeting at the suite's double door entrance. It doesn't take a genius to guess that these are Mon-El's palatial digs. In the center of the room is a rectangular lap pool, its rim mosaicked in mustard yellow and burnt orange tiles, its mere presence ostentatious for a planet where potable water is a luxury used mostly for bathing, cleaning and brick construction. Surrounding the pool on three sides are segmented living areas, the most notable of which is the bed.

An advertisement for plush and luxurious, his bed is the stuff from which romantic fantasies are made. Like the chancel's bed, it sits upon a platform, this one much higher, and the bed itself appears to be several mattresses stacked upon one another, reminding Kara of the fairy-tale 'The Princess and the Pea'. From a mechanism on the ceiling hangs a transparent netting of white and gold that encloses the entire bed, turning it into a grotto of semi-privacy.

As for the rest of the room, the sight of blood-red and gold tiles made from Daxam's distinctive clay, is broken only by a series of rich hand-woven rugs rolled onto the floor in what appears to be a near-haphazard manner. On one side of the pool, is an area that appears to be a sitting space on the floor; brightly colored plush pillows surrounding a low, flat square table one might presume was for casual dining among friends…were it not for the collection of hookahs in its center.

Their collective artistry demands attention, inviting study before drawing its users in with promises of other pleasures. Made of beautiful hand-blown glass of various shades, the hookahs range from tall and elegant with hourglass like curves, to short and squat like a jockey long put to pasture, each with a long hose winding around its base to rest on a hook above the bowl. There is no indication as to what drug of choice is smoked in the burner on the top.

Without a knock, a keyhole-shaped door whisks opens on the balcony a few meters away from Kara, admitting Viona dressed in the revealing uniform of an Adept, this time in a beautiful ochre color, and another, older woman, wearing the comparatively conservative dress of a palace servant. Strangely, Kara doesn't even consider attempting to cover or conceal her own nakedness.

The servant woman carries a tray of food that smells of stewed meat, the aroma awaking her stomach, causing her to wonder how long it's been since she took refreshment in the chancel. "How long have I been asleep?" Kara inquires.

"Three days, Senya," Viona replies with a light curtsy.

"Three days?!" Kara asks, shocked. Three days of sleeping away her time here, of replenishing her energies. What did that mean in the outside world? Alex hadn't spent nearly that long in Kara's mind when the neural interface was first used.

"Senya, it was clear you needed the rest. The service done to your master was truly…awe-inspiring." Viona's eyes shine with admiration, much to Kara's disbelief.

"It was…nothing?" she replies, not quite certain how to respond to the Adept's compliment, let alone her esteem. She's accustomed to being venerated for heroic deeds and for saving people from danger, but not for acts of sex, no matter how phenomenal.

"It was quite extraordinary, Senya," Viona negates Kara's modesty. "No single partner has ever withstood the use the Callus Band," the sex-worker explains. "Not even a trained Adept. The devices are designed for group pleasure…you see? Stories will be written of your skill and courage."

Kara cringes at Viona's use of the word performance, suggesting it was something she did for accolades, rather than love and self-discovery. "It was more stubbornness than courage, I assure you," she corrects, blushing at the memories.

"Already, the palace is abuzz," interjects the young servant woman. "And the chancel's vidstream is the most popular entertainment on the Daxcess."

As though suddenly reminded of the other woman's presence, Viona hastens to introduce her. "Senya, this is your handmaiden Brana Val."

"Oh, I don't need a handmaiden, I'm perfectly capable—" Kara rushes to reject the idea.

"Per His Highness's orders, your harness and hook are to be worn at all times, except during ablutionary activities, or at his discretion. If nothing else, you will need assistance in the removal and redressing of these items." Viona clasps her hands in front of her, and tilts her head to the side, examining Kara as though she'd been warned to expect this reaction. "Brana is also trained in the art of personal massage, which will allow you to remain in top physical condition and prepared to serve his every sensual need at a moment's notice. Brana is an expert in the physical maintenance of concubines, both male and female. You're in good hands, Senya."

"We'll begin with your repast," Brana insists, disinclined towards rejection. Carrying the tray of rich smelling food another upstairs alcove, she sets the meal down on another short table surrounded by plush pillows, an area clearly used for simply for taking one's ease. "While you eat, I will see that your bath is drawn. Your bruises are beginning to fade it appears, but there are still treatments that can be applied…if they're overly painful…should you prefer, I can see that abatement packs are applied."

"No," Kara says, automatically cupping her breasts which are various shades of purple, yellow and even the green of healing capillaries. "If I was unwilling to receive pain, they never would have gotten this bruised in the first place," she points out.

"Indeed," Brana agrees with a nod, her hands clasped in front of her in the way of palace servants that's so easy to pick up when one's instinct is to submit. There's something motherly about her, an impression perhaps supported by the streaks of grey in her otherwise mahogany hair, and the crow's feet around her kind, brown eyes that pop up when she smiles. She walks back over the steps leading to Kara's alcove and opens a gold-inlay chest, removing a silky garment of a familiar royal blue color. The material is practically fluid, catching the light and slipping through her hands like water spilling over a fall. "Perhaps you'd like to wear a robe while you dine?"

Kara nods, slipping her arms, one at a time, into the wide, delicate sleeves of the offered garment. It is stunningly beautiful and so light upon her skin to cause no discomfort to the sensitive parts of her flesh, though it provides little coverage, as the material is nearly as translucent as the negligee of the Adept. "Thank you, Brana," she says.

At the table, Kara kneels to eat, knees spread slightly apart on the large pillow beneath her to give her restrained collar some slack. Learning to move while wearing the device is a challenge, finding it far more effective in straightening her posture than wearing a dictionary on her head. The meaty stew Brana provides tastes even better than it smells, and the dunberry wine is a particularly delicious vintage.

Brana disappears from the room to prepare Kara's bath. "The prince…" she inquires softly of Viona, "is…well?" The last time she saw him, he too had slipped into unconsciousness. "He has…recovered?"

Viona nods. "He slept as long as his duties would allow, Senya. His strength is regained. If you'll excuse me," Viona curtsies, "I have my own duties to attend to, Senya." She departs before Kara can open her mouth to ask protest or ask more questions.

As if becoming an expert in the care and feeding of concubines had included honing her timing to a perfect razor's edge, Brana shows up for Kara just as she's swallowing the last bite of the bread that went with her already decimated stew. She leads Kara into the bathroom, an upstairs room reserved as her own private oasis – Brana discloses – which has all the amenities of a spa. The first of which being a huge, deep bathtub, carved from a single block of pink marble-like stone, its steaming waters sprinkled liberally with floating flower petals, a comforting aroma emanating from it.

Tile mosaics make another appearance on the wall above the tub and on the wall opposite, like a matching set, the artisan works adding to the decadent luxury of the room reserved as her private oasis. Also adding to the extravagance is the rather prominent massage table, upholstered with an impossibly soft fur. Beside the massage table is a rolling cart of the same height containing a tray with meticulously arrayed tubes and jars of various items for which Kara cannot discern a purpose. Brushing her hand on the table as she walks by, Kara imagines the fur against her naked skin and her body is quick to respond, her nipples tightening and belly clenching.

"Do you like it?" Brana inquires, carefully observing Kara's reaction.

"Yes," Kara sighs, torn between her body's reaction and the voices in her head that decry the use of animal fur. "It's so soft. What is it?"

"There's a backwater planet called Tix in the Frellic System. They haven't much in the way of valuable resources to trade – no minerals or gemstones, or even a decent wood. Their soil is so weak its forest lands grow from a wood that splinters so easily it's useless for building. But they do have bellings in abundance, a woodland creature with tasty meat and a soft fur that breed faster than they can trap them. The animal generates an oil in its skin that makes the fur easy to clean with simply a good brushing, so it holds no dirt and gathers no scent. They say that's why the bellings have no natural enemies…they can't be tracked by scent. Bellings are the planet's only renewable resource, and so we trade our clay for them, which the Tixians use to build habitats that shelter them against the planet's harsh winters. In the past five cycles, more Tixians have survived the winter than ever before.

"That's…nice," Kara decides. Daxam trades its most valuable resource for animal furs so that the people of another planet can survive their own harsh environment and better their prospects for life and life expectancy. That doesn't sound at all like the xenophobic practices of Daxam that she was taught were the norm. Krypton would have turned its collective nose up at what Tix had to offer and written the planet off as just another 'backwater', but Daxam had not.

"Our prince brokered the deal," Brana adds, untying Kara's robe and slipping it down her arms, hanging the garment across a rod designed to warm it. "He said…if it wasn't for our clay, we'd be no better off. If you like, I can have the bed in your alcove covered in it. For your pleasure."

"He doesn't want Daxam to be like Krypton," Kara murmurs softly, the realization striking and powerful as Brana's unspoken implication hangs in the air between them.

The handmaiden purses her lips, but chooses to let Kara's inference stand, instead merely redirecting the conversation. "Your bath is ready," she announces, reaching for the tie at the back of Kara's collar.

"Wait!" Kara belays her, breathlessly and with a nervous grimace. Only now it occurs to her that Brana will be removing the anal hook and then replacing it later. "I don't know…."

Placing her hands atop Kara's shoulders, Brana soothes her like a skittish horse, running soft hands down her arms. "It's all right, Senya," she pacifies. "Think of me as your personal Physic. I will know and learn everything there is to discover about your body as it pertains to the giving and receiving of both pain and pleasure."

"It's just that only my master has…" she says, her voice trailing off.

"I understand, Senya. Everything I do will only be done for the purposes of keeping your body healthy so that you can serve your master's needs for as longs as he desires. You must allow trust to build between us, Senya. It is what His Highness wishes."

"Is it?" she wonders curiously.

Brana nods, a gentle smile on her face. "I have long served House Gand."

Sucking her bottom lip, Kara rolls the concept around in her head. With the exception of her Earth mother, Kara's never had a physic – a doctor – who would poke and prod her body as though given carte blanche for the purpose of keeping her healthy. She has vague memories of immunizations and wellness check-ups in Argo City, but these were all performed by a medical Kelix. No one has been as intimate with her person as Mon-El. Making her decision, the only option open to her in truth, she nods her head in surrender. She supposes it wouldn't be realistic to expect a prince to dress her every day. "If it is what my master wishes…."

"Good girl," the servant says in her most caring and comforting tone. "Place your hands on the table and lean forward," she instructs. Reaching up, she unties the anchoring cord from the back of her silver collar. "Take a deep breath and on the count of three…bear down." Brana grips both hand around the stem of the hook and counts, "One…two…three."

"Nnnnnnnnnggg!" As instructed, Kara pushes the hook from her rectum while Brana pulls at the same time, the ball popping free with a streak of pain that lingers for a moment before finally beginning to fade.

"All right?"

"Y-Yes," Kara nods, surprised by the rise of emotion in her throat. Awakening this morning with that gaping, aching emptiness in her cunt was bad enough, but at least there was the soreness there as a reminder; and then some sense of fullness in her dark recesses that was something to hold onto. But now it's gone, and she can't recall ever feeling so…hollow. "Is it…is it strange that I…that I want it back?" she asks, her voice breathy with anxiety, as though she has just been relieved of her security blanket and feels adrift without it.

Carrying the hook over to a bowl of red and gold clay on the rolling cart, Brana drops the hook into the cleansing solution that will make it safe to wear again in a matter of moments. The cleaning solution bubbles, generating its own heat as it goes to work, boiling until it evaporates. Brana shakes her head, shrugging with the expression of one who has seen all that this place has to offer and is surprised by nothing anymore. "Some take to it more than others," she allows a small chuckle, her hands reaching for the closures of Kara's submissive harness. "Just as some need the leash, or the shackles. Some others need soft hands, blindfolds, feathers and the like, to be wooed or to be hanged from the ceiling…or to do the hanging. Some prefer a routine while others seek variety. All needs are met here, Senya. It's only strange if you refuse to accept what those needs are. To deny them is to deny yourself." Beneath practiced fingers, the harness melts away, dropping to the floor with a heavy clink.

Turning, Kara catches her reflection in a full-length mirror, noting the crisscross pattern of pink lines on her skin left behind by the tight harness. She's a mess, undoubtedly, her hair a rat's nest and part of her whispers that she should be mortified by the things she did in the chancel, the things she allowed him to do to her – the myriad ways in which she debased herself, and in front of an audience, no less. An audience which, if Brana and Viona are to be believed, has been extended to anyone with the means of viewing her exploitation on the Daxcess.

She should be ashamed to her Kryptonian core and regret being led by her animal nature to such depths of depravity. Like allowing him to call her a whore; or worse yet, enjoying it when he did. But she just…can't bring herself to feel that shame or those regrets.

Examining her master's work in the mirror, she pivots her body, studying her backside over her left shoulder. Like her breasts, her ass is bruised both from spanking and the force with which he repeatedly, incessantly, ferociously pummeled her from behind. The rainbow of colors is already beginning to fade, to Kara's disappointment. She'd slept straight through the period of their forming.

"I've never had bruises before," she realizes aloud. "Not since childhood."

"That seems odd," Brana comments. "Do they treat you like a crystal figurine from Sedenach on Krypton?"

"Something like that," Kara replies, cryptically.

"Well, if the rumors are true…Krypton's treatment does not agree with you quite as much as Daxam's."

"You're not wrong," Kara sighs, rubbing her cheek against her bare shoulder.

"Bruised or not, your body is breathtaking, Senya. It is no wonder the prince claims you. Perhaps we should begin its preparation for his return? If you like…?" Brana tilts her head discretely towards a door, indicating the location of the water closet.

"Of course," Kara replies. A blush stains her cheeks, her body reminding her suddenly, and out of blue, that she has other needs. Quickly and quietly, she tiptoes into the small anteroom.

Returning a few minutes later, she allows a sense of excitement to rise within her to replace her disappointment over the bruises. There are more where those come from, she is certain. Brana holds out a hand, helping Kara up the steps and into the deep tub. The hot water stings mightily against her backside and between her legs, and Kara hisses in response as she sinks down into the water.

"I'll have a cream to help with what aches on the outside, but the hot bath is for the sore muscles," Brana explains. She presses a panel on the wall and suddenly the water erupts with action, the bath now a hot tub. "Relax for a few moments," she instructs, "while I prepare the hairwash."

When the stinging dissipates and her body melts in response to the hot, forceful water of the tub, Kara's eyes close as she leans her head against the rim of the tub and fights the urge to sleep again. The room spins a bit when Brana calls her, like a voice in a long tunnel, and she opens her eyes to find the handmaiden preparing to pour pitcher of perfumed water over her head.

There's little difference to washing her hair on Daxam and washing her hair on Earth – other than the handmaiden provided to do it for her. Brana works the suds thoroughly through Kara's hair, commenting on how beautiful if must look when it's fresh and coiffed, before rinsing the shampoo using a hose pulled from the wall. Apparently, the pitcher of perfumed water in was to neutralize the sweat and other fluids that might be in her hair.

After completing her hairwash, Brana uses a sponge to clean her arms, certain to get between the fingers and under the fingernails. Urging her to stand, the handmaiden proceeds to soap her entire body; her breasts, her stomach, back, rear end, legs, until finally she reaches her seam.

"I can—"

Ignoring the senya's protest, born out of a modesty Brana doesn't comprehend, she dips the sponge into Kara's folds. "Still sensitive?" she asks.

Kara's body stiffens at first in response to the liberty Brana takes. Her clit throbs, her passage raw with tenderness. "Yes," she meeps, pressing her lips and her eyes tightly together.

"I shouldn't wonder," Brana smirks, understandingly. "Using a Callus Band on one partner," she tsks. "Were he not the prince, I would take him to task for such carelessness. Although I'm certain that his cock is punishing him for it as well. Can you tell me how large he becomes?" she asks, clinically.

Kara approximates both the length and the girth with her hands, her sore insides reacting to the memory, even as Brana's sponge moves around to the back to clean the crease of her ass. Kara dips back down in to the water to rinse all the suds while Brana retrieves a towel. After helping Kara from the tub, the handmaiden dries her quickly and thoroughly, wrapping her long, wet hair into a neat chignon before indicating that she should lie down on the massage table. "On your back," she specifies. "I must check for damage."

When Brana said that she would learn everything there was to learn about Kara's body, she hadn't been kidding, because what follows next could easily be considered Kara's very first pelvic exam.

Placing her feet on a set of stirrups that seem to slide from nowhere when Brana lowers the bottom part of the table and stands between her legs. "Relax," Brana soothes, her hands resting lightly on Kara's knees, using a soft voice like honey while spreading them wider. She snaps on a pair of gloves and squeezes a clear gel on one them before the hand dives between Kara's spread thighs, placing her other hand on Kara's belly. There's no blanket for discretion or to shield Kara from what Brana's doing as the handmaiden slides two lubricated fingers into her vagina. Kara stiffens again, throwing her arm over her eyes, shielding herself the only way she can, by obscuring her own vision.

She's listened to Alex complain about trips to the gynecologist and always tried to best approximate a look of empathy for her sister's discomfort. She had no idea until now. Desperately, she tries to concentrate on the feel of the soft belling-fur against her naked skin.

"You're quite swollen," Brana diagnoses, her demeanor professional and caring. "No surprise there. But he did no permanent damage that I can discern, and that's good."

"He would never do that," she defends with absolute certainty. "He wouldn't."

"As you say," she answers. The Daxamite way for expressing a lack of desire for participating in a given argument. Kara gets the distinct feeling that Brana has seen the dark side of concubine treatment by their masters.

"He hasn't…has he? To someone else…his last senya?"

"You're his first, senya," the woman reveals. "We are all quite surprised that he decided to take one, as he's always claimed to revile this practice of his father's. But then seeing you…everything is clear. And I've never treated his Adepts for anything more than bruising. All consensual and applied with the utmost control."

Kara breathes a sigh of relief she didn't know she'd been holding.

"Have you been given the preventative?"

"Preventative?" Kara echoes.

"The injection to prevent conception," Brana provides. "It's my understanding that the prince is very particular about these things. He's obsessed with not impregnating his partners."

 _'_ _That's not what he said when he was coming inside me,"_ she thinks. "Yes," Kara lies, out loud. She sees no point in being stuck with a needle, since she can't get pregnant here. Or…maybe even out there, for that matter, even if he is genetically designed to be a breeder.

According to Lord Ral, Mon-El's father had him enhanced during the Advancement phase of his gestational development. By all but removing the production element of the hormone that prompts a man's refractory period, genetically manipulating him so that his reproductive system generates sperm faster than his body can spend it, and by ensuring that his sperm has ninety-six percent viability, King Vir turned his heir into a baby-making machine. To what purpose, it is still unclear – at least to her.

"I don't need it," Kara explains, studying a particularly engrossing spot on the ceiling. "I can't get pregnant, even if I wanted to." Even though it had only been one time without a condom, in light of recent discoveries about his genetic predisposition for breeding, even once should have resulted in a pregnancy, at least in Kara's mind. Which can only lead to one conclusion – she is unable to conceive with him. Their genetic codes must be too different to be compatible.

"That's good," Brana says, while withdrawing her hand from Kara's vagina, unaware of how her words are a knife to the senya's heart. Picking up a small bowl from a table beside Kara's head, she explains, "Unsanctioned scions don't usually pass muster with the Procreational Authority. It is likely that any child conceived would be terminated once discovered. Royal blood, or not. That doesn't usually go so well for the mothers."

Brana dips her fingers into the bowl, scooping up a healthy dollop of a cream that reminds her of the Dijon mustard Winn likes to slather on his roast beef sandwiches. "What's that?"

"It's an anti-inflammatory cream made from crushed olney blossoms and belling oil," the handmaiden describes as she slides her fingers back inside of Kara. Coating the walls of Kara's vagina with the medicinal cream, Brana keeps the conversation going to take her patient's mind off the discomfort. "It's completely natural, and your body will absorb it within the hour. It should be reapplied four times a day for the next three days." Brana rethinks the prescription for a moment. "We'll make it seven days if your master remains particularly…enthusiastic." She nods her head jerkily, as though accepting her own logic.

Kara will use the olney cream all day every day, so long as her master remains enthusiastic.

After the medical examination and treatment, Brana moves onto grooming. "Senya's must be bare," she announces, but provides no explanation nor reasoning. With expert skill, the handmaiden waxes the hair from her legs, her underarms, and finally, the thatch of golden hair over her vulva. Kara barely manages to restrain her shrieks of surprise as Brana tears away the waxed strips. Thankfully, when the task is done, the handmaiden gently smears the anti-inflammatory over her sensitive skin the numb the fiery pain.

"All right," Brana sigh, switching tracks as she holds up two balls strung together by a shiny metal chain. About the size of ping-pong balls, the ones in Brana's hand are not unlike the beads Mon-El inserted into her rectum in the chancel, before upgrading her to the hook.

"What are those for?" she inquires, her eyes widening with interest, and possibly arousal.

"You're to wear these inside of you. Hold them tightly with the muscles of your pelvic floor so that they don't fall out. He stretched you quite a bit, Senya. And while you will return to normal, the beads can speed the process. They should be cleaned and changed upon waking, upon sleeping, and at midday. You can do this yourself, but I'm happy to help should you need it." Brana bends closer to Kara's vagina and begins inserting the device.

"I can d-do it," she groans, as Brana slides the beads in. Her vagina is tender, but almost immediately the numbing properties of the anti-inflammatory cream take effect. Kara hadn't realized how sore she was until the tenderness eased up a bit. "For how long?" she asks.

"For how long what?" Brana returns.

"How long do I wear the beads?"

"Always," Brana replies with a chuckle. "The prince's appetites are…legendary, Senya, Callus Band notwithstanding. You will need to keep your body in top condition to meet his needs. Unless you wish to lose your position to another." Pressing Kara's knees towards her chest, Brana urges her to lift her legs, while she folds the stirrups down and resets the lower part of the belling-fur covered table, allowing Kara to lay flat on her back, her legs extended. Snapping off the gloves and throwing them into a garbage bin, Brana continues the next portion of her task with bare hands.

Slightly embarrassed, at first, when Brana massages the mustard yellow cream into her breasts, Kara quickly begins to relax into the table, wondering why she should be bothered by the hands of a professional on her skin. As with her vagina, the cream works wonders on her sore breasts and bruised thighs as Brana works it into Kara's skin until none remains. Next, Kara feels the sensations of hot oil dribbling down the center line of her body, beginning at her solar-plexus and ending at her pubis.

Brana massages in the oil, using her thumbs to dig into tense, tired muscles structure, working Kara's arms, her shoulders, and her abdominals before working her way down to the legs. Spreading her legs gently, she digs her fingers and thumbs into Kara's inner thighs, eliciting a moan of suppressed pain.

"I know," Brana soothes, her voice like a lullaby. "Just one moment more…."

Brana helps Kara to roll over on her stomach, and she hardly remembers what happens after that, until she's being a nudged awake, and Brana is helping her to sit up.

"You're really good at that," Kara slurs sleepily.

Brana chuckles. "Anytime you'd like, Senya. I am exclusively at your service." Holding out the warm robe, she helps Kara to don it, tying the sash for her. "Next we'll do your hair and redress you."

Somewhere between having her hair dried and a curling rod to give it volume and body, Kara shakes off the lethargy instilled by the massage. She's never truly understood the draw of the massage when other girls would take their spa days. Never able to chance it, even for the sake of appearances, because she was afraid that the unlucky masseuse assigned to her would break fingers in the attempt to work out Kryptonian knots of steel. But now she knew. Now she could _see_. It was absolute…heaven. Almost as good as sex with Mon-El.

She feels both utterly relaxed and utterly energized at the same time.

"Your beauty is the stuff of legends, Senya. A fitting match to the Crown Prince, if I may be so bold," Brana whispers with awe, as she finishes with her hair.

Kara's gold locks curl gently at the bottom, the handmaiden's hair drying technique infused volume at the roots in some sort of magical blow-out that didn't leave her hair weighted down by its own length. Right at this moment, every part of her feels and looks…perfect. Part of her wishes that her master would stalk into the room and take her right this instant, just so that he could mess up her perfection.

"If only your master could see you now," Brana whispers, as if plucking the thoughts straight from Kara's mind. "There would be no holding him back."

"And…where is he? My master?" Kara asks, narrowly disguising the pout in her voice while catching Brana's eyes in the reflection of the mirror. Brana's whiskey-brown eyes narrow slightly, as though wondering why Kara would need such information, while simultaneously considering whether providing it would be considered an act of disloyalty. Kara decides to ease her mind. "It's just that I'm not sure how this works…having never been a senya before. If he is my master…should I not be with him wherever he goes?"

"Your master will call upon you when your services are required," Brana assures her. "Or he will have you summoned to his side."

'Great!' Kara sighs, her shoulders slumping. It could be days or weeks before she sees him again, especially if wishes to ignore her presence, or punish her for winning the challenge.

"You pout," Brana chuckles, "as if he can stay away from you for long. From the time he assigned me as your handmaiden two days ago, he has asked almost hourly if you were awake yet."

"He has?" she perks up slightly.

"He cares for your well-being, though it's clear he wishes to seem indifferent. Trust me, Senya…you will not have long to wait. I'd wager before sunset, if I know my business. When you see him, you should drop to your knees and place your palms on the floor in front of you. I have found this tends to make masters very ardent. For some senyas this would be undesirable, but that does not seem to be the case with you."

"No," she sighs, imagining her master becoming…ardent at the sight of her on her knees.

"Now…we should redress you, so that you are ready when the time arrives."

Donning the harness again is like welcoming an old friend. As she slips it on, adjusting it just right as Brana tightens the closures, Kara can feel her confidence returning in a rush. She is strong and sexy and empowered and she belongs to her master, who will return to her because her body is his to command. And when he does – please Rao, let his need be strong – she will serve his desires and provide his pleasure.

When Brana returns to her with the anal hook, Kara wastes no time on embarrassment and bends over the table, propping up on her forearms and spreading her legs. With only the tiniest bit of resistance, Brana pops the lubricated ball end of the hook past her tight rim and knots the tie to the back of her collar. Kara breathes a sigh of relief as the ball fills her, the curved end of the rod wedging between her cheeks. Her clutch, beads tucked inside, clenches tightly as though welcoming it home.

There's a dress, it seems, that accompanies the harness, and Brana sets about putting it on her. At first it appears only as a large swath of completely diaphanous chiffon, perhaps a close approximation of her skin tone if she were able to tan, with metal rings haphazardly sewn into the end seams. Each metal ring – a collapsible – hooks into a corresponding metal ring on her harness and on the sides of her collar, cascading down her chest to strategically cover her body, as wads of sheer material bunch together to become almost opaque to the casual observer. Studying her reflection in the mirror, Kara can still see her nipples, along with the alluring Y-shape where her thighs converge. Turning around, the view of the back leaves nothing to the imagination, revealing the harness beneath and the hook and collar all but announcing that she is the property of her master, and the thought of being seen this way doesn't bother her in the slightest.

If Kara's understanding of engineering is correct, the dress is designed to tear away if required, the collapsible rings requiring a minimum of torque to separate from the harness. But beneath the flimsy negligee of a dress, the submissive harness already does its job of keeping her perpetually stimulated and ready for pleasuring. Tautly pulled leather straps crisscross her body, plumping her breasts and lifting her bottom, while two strips run between her labia to prime her clit and keep her lubricated for her master's immediate use.

Excitement fills her as Brana applies dark coloring to her eyes, making the blue in the brighter and sultrier. Light pink gloss is added to her lips, just a sparkly tint lighter than her own shade, but it reflects the light in an alluring way. Lastly, Brana clips a silver cuff onto each of her wrists. The cuffs themselves designate her as a sex worker, but the symbol emblazoned on their surface, that of House Gand with a small crown beneath, indicate she is the property of its Crown Prince.

"To remind those who might see…those who might desire…." Brana says. "That offers of pleasure must go through the Crown Prince first."

To those who might desire…that Kara is unapproachable, unavailable, and untouchable to all but those with express permission.

She is ready. Though her body was recently driven to the point of exhaustion, and though she still aches in the deepest parts of her, it has been three days without his touch, without his correction, and without the sounds of his rutting pleasure ringing in her ears. She hungers. Like a beast freshly taken from the leash…she hungers.


	14. Chapter 14

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: Please be aware that this story is heavily BDSM so read responsibly. If you're not into D/s kink then back out of this story right now.

Chapter 14/?

Prince or not, after a game he always supervises the care and feeding of Pax, his garat, especially a game in which his team is effectively trounced by their biggest rival. His fault mostly, because his mind couldn't banish a certain leggy Kryptonian with golden locks, unforgettable breasts and the tightest, wettest—

"Chambers, Highness?" the voice of his team goalie interrupts his thoughts. After each win, his team would celebrate victory in the main hall of the palace where drinks would flow with abandon and sexual partners would offer their services with alacrity. In defeat, the six members of his team would retire to his chambers to soak in his heated pool, review their mistakes on the holo-viz, and fog their minds with ojym weed.

But his mind isn't thinking about ojym weed. Instead, his thoughts are headed directly south, blood rushing to his crotch causing the pants of his kit to tighten. A garata victory always makes him want to celebrate with sex – joyous, free-spirited sex – but a defeat just makes him want to fuck. To take all of his frustrations and thoughts of failure and rut and rut, ejecting it all from his cock until his legs are weak and that organ is well and truly subjugated. It would, no doubt, take several attempts – even without the Callus Band. His genetic 'enhancements' are sometimes more of a burden and chore than the gift Father seems to consider them. Except that…with the Kryptonian…it never feels like drudgery.

"Your Highness?" the voice intrudes again.

Mon-El glances up at the worried face of Declyn Fors, his left wingback, attempting to redirect his thoughts. "You were saying?"

"Chambers…as usual?" Fors asks again, a sparkle in his eyes that defies the fact their team was just creamed by their biggest competition. Final score: 18 to 2. A humiliation that rankles deep in Mon-El's gut; one that needs exorcising between the legs of his whimpering, begging senya. An act to which his cock already looks forward.

Declyn Fors is on the bright side of twenty, still a young man by all accounts, and not all that good at schooling his face, or his thoughts for that matter. "Why do I get the feeling you're more anxious than usual to watch game vids, Fors?"

"We've all heard the stories, sire," Fors shrugs, a smirk spreading across his face.

"And you were hoping to get a look at her," Mon-El infers. "Why not just watch the chancel vids like everyone else?"

"It's not the same," Ven Revik pipes up. Elbowing his younger teammate in the ribs, he laughs. "He's still hurt that he wasn't invited, sire."

"C'mon!" Fors counters, incredulous glances at this friend and prince, "A Kryptonian whore?" The challenge in his eyes are like hard chips of flint boring into Mon-El. "It's hard to credit, to be honest. Kryptonians are so…prudish."

"Not to mention cold," Revnik adds.

"It seems impossible to think there's a female among them that can work up the honey to get a man's dick wet. Seems more effort than it's worth. Some things have to be seen in person to be believed…."

Before he can defend his more-than-eager senya, Pax sticks her scaly, yellow head through the bars of her pen, snorting nostrils looking for a treat among the pockets of Mon-El's leather kit. Withdrawing a handful of vegetant cubes in his cupped hand, he waves them under her seeking nose. Gently, her forked tongue snakes out to swipe all three cubes from his palm, leaving hardly a trace of saliva. "Soft mouth," he praises, running a hand along the grain of her long scaly neck. "There's a good girl."

Naturally, his mind returns to the Kryptonian at the mention of 'good girl', wondering if she has yet awakened and if she awaits his pleasure as she is meant to. He slept a full sixteen hours after losing consciousness in the chancel, but then woke, disturbingly ready to take her again, cock hard and aching for her sweet cunt, as though remembering its adventures from the day before. After assigning his sleeping senya a handmaiden, he asked after her well-being on an hourly basis, until he began to feel like an idiot and threw himself into other pursuits to take his mind off of her. A scheme that has shown limited success thus far.

The same lack of focus that sent him flying over Pax's neck and into the dirt three times during the game, gifted him with ample time to brood, and if brooding is good for one thing…it's good for planning. Two days without touching her, without even so much as laying eyes upon her, has offered Mon-El enough distance to concoct a new plan that is certain send his Kryptonian senya back where she belongs of, her own free will.

As much as it sickens him, Mon-El's plot requires him to take a page from his father's book; to play the cad to the fullest; unfeeling and dastardly to the highest extreme of which he is capable. First, and the most pivotal part of his plan is to lock down the softer emotions she plants within him with her enormous comet-blue eyes, the adorable way her brow crinkles, or how her voice trembles when he's rutting between her thighs, her hips rising to greet his as she writhes beneath him. Just as he promised her in the chancel, he must remind her as often as possible that she is simply there to spread her legs, nothing more. He will show her the folly of expecting or wanting anything more from him than the emotionally detached, physically domineering and morally bankrupt master he plans to be.

Second, he must present her with the kind of man she truly deserves; a man of good breeding and parentage, and an even better heart, despite the damage it's faced. A heart that stays open and sees the beauty in even the darkest of sunsets. He must show her the heart of his own darkness by turning on the light.

For this purpose, Ral is ideal.

Having clearly grown attached to his beautiful Kryptonian senya, Mon-El has no doubt his bond-brother would jump at the opportunity to take her to his bed. His green eyes hunger with every look – not to take, but to give – and when Kara took him into her mouth in the chancel, it was clear to any with eyes that Ral was lost to her. His charm will win him a place between her thighs, of that Mon-El is certain, but it's his easy-going manner and care for those around him which will steal her heart. If she has half the mind he credits to her, she will escape this place before she can fall too deeply for a man who is little more than a shadow, no matter how real he seems.

Perhaps this will send her running without him ever having to reveal his secrets to her. If he's lucky he'll never have to see the inevitable disgust on her face when she learns the truth about what Father made of him.

"Recent changes in my lifestyle should have no bearing on our usual routine," he decides. The prince turns to a young servant boy, a runner, and provides him with instructions. "Tell the kitchens to have my usual post-game refreshments delivered to my chambers."

"Yes, Your Highness." With a nod, the young boy darts away.

Declyn smiles gleefully, his eyes smoldering with something dark. "If my eyes don't deceive," he says, his amber eyes darting down to the prince's crotch, "you're already chomping at the bit."

Ignoring the twinge of uncertainly in his gut, and the sudden lurch of something he can't identify, Mon-El tells himself that there's no time like the present to put his two-pronged plan to action. "Yes," he tells Declyn, "it's time my little Kryptonian began earning her keep."

Waiting just a few moments for the other five members of their team to finish penning and feeding their garats, Mon-El stalks out of the stables, his leathers growing tighter by the moment. His stretched penile skin, delayed from healing by regular erections that have not allowed him the full three days recovery after use of the Callus Band, assures his cock will still grow to abnormally enormous size. Should he continue to maintain regular erections without adhering to the healing period, it may remain monstrous and ultra-sensitive, the skin so thin the veins threaten to burst through. It is an agony, but one he can live with.

Kara finds a device called a Quantex, a clear pad with touch screen capability, the direction in which smart tablets are heading in the near future, she thinks. The device contains a thousand libraries worth of books and videos, as well as a connection to the Daxcess, where she stumbles upon a treasure trove of sexual and sensual information, including a link to the live feed and recorded footage from cameras in the chancel. She wonders how many people witnessed her performance the other evening, the way she's now witnessing a nubile girl's plentiful breasts bounce as her female Adept, bearing an impressive strap-on, rides her from behind.

Kara slips her fingers between the already wet seam of her hungry clutch, finding her clit like a heat-seeking missile. Her breath quickens as she flicks the bud, swollen from the leather straps she pushes aside. The muscles of her inner walls clamp down on her recuperative beads, her lower abdominals crunching delicately as her climax grows near.

Just as the dam threatens to overflow and bring her long-awaited pleasure, Kara hears the hiss of the chamber's entrance sliding open and multiple, rowdy voices enter the room. Throwing the Quantex down on her bed, she scrambles out of her alcove to peer over the balcony, watching as her master and five excited cohorts enter the cavernous room, stripping off what appears to be garata uniforms. Immediately drawn first to Mon-El, Kara's eyes then scan the group for Ral and when she doesn't find him, her heart drops with disappointment.

She's unaware of taking the stairs, until she's dropping to her knees before her master, and placing her hands on the floor at his feet.

Stupidly, he supposes, he stalked the long distance from the stables to his chambers imagining her already on the bed, legs spread in waiting, and so when he enters the room and finds that not so, it irrationally stokes his ire. Glancing up at the balcony where the senya quarters are located, he finds her gazing down upon him, already moving along the railing to the staircase as though drawn to him by invisible wire.

Handmaiden Val knows her business, of that he is certain, because the servant girl who invaded his thoughts the last few days has been replaced with the picture of perfection, a vartine made flesh. Lids darkened to make the blue of her eyes seem more celestial, pink lips that make his heart race in his chest, and volumes of hair every strand in place. The girl in a servant's uniform had seemed like a whore in disguise, her face unpainted, but there's something incongruously innocent about the senya in a harness and tear away dress, and pink lips like a little girl playing dress up.

He wants to ruin her. To see how long it takes to erase that innocence completely and say that he owns it now. That it's his to take. He wants to smudge that sparkling gloss beyond repair, turn that hair into a sweaty mess again, and make her come so hard that wet kohl streaks down her face.

She drops to her knees before him and places her hands, palm down, at his feet. "Master," she greets softly, her voice achingly submissive. He can't remember his cock ever being this hard, though it must have been mere days ago now.

His men observe her every move as they tear off their kits, throwing boots haphazardly about the room, eyes glued to his concubine paying homage as they dispense with their clothing, taking it all the way down to the skin. Yels'en, Revnik, and Wals head straight into the pool, sinking into its warmth with matching sighs of relief. Revnik works the hot water into his nearly bald scalp, while Yels'en sinks all the way under and then emerges, casting off water from his dirty-blonde hair with a flip of his head. Fors and Robis, sans any clothing, head for the sitting area to light a pipe with ojym.

Like his men, the prince tears off his muddy boots and tosses them aside for later retrieval as he scans every last inch of the Kryptonian like she's a sight for sore eyes. Unsnapping the leather jacket of his kit, he notices something on one of her hands – a glisten of moisture on the tips of her index and middle fingers. Reaching down, he grabs her by her wrist cuff and hauls her hand up to his nose, where he takes a long, telling sniff, discovering exactly what he expected to find.

"Have you been touching yourself, Pet?" he interrogates, immediately putting her on the defensive. "Have you been trying to come without my permission? To commit an act of self-release?"

She avoids his aggressively searching eyes, turning her head away. It shouldn't count. She'd hardly been aware she was doing it, it all happened so naturally.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Pet? Hmm?" Grabbing her chin with rough fingers, he forces her face to turn, her sorrowful eyes to meet his hardened chips of grey.

"I'm sorry, Master—"

"Sorry? Is that all?"

"It's just I missed you so much and you've been gone all day—"

" _I_ have not come all day," he admits, grimacing as he catches himself giving too much away. "So…why should you be given such honor?" Tomorrow, just to know that he still could, he will schedule a session with an Adept or two and seek his release elsewhere. Perhaps with Heron, if he's available. Scratch that. Heron can cancel his whole day. "Who do you think you are?" the prince demands, standing to tower over her aggressively, commanding the attention of everyone in the room.

Wetness gushes between her thighs in response to the authoritative tone of his voice and his dominant stance, so Kara decides to answer his question by reminding him what they both need to know at the moment. "I am Kara Zor-El," her voice crescendos with each word. "Mon-El of Daxam is my master. I am your Kryptonian whore."

Mon-El hears a snort of laughter from behind him, Declyn Fors already feeling the buzz from his ojym. "You know what they say," he slurs. "Kryptonians prefer to take their pleasure in private, by themselves…while they sing the Kryptonian anthem." He throws his head back and laughs like it's the funniest joke he's ever heard.

Kara grits her teeth at the insult, disliking this friend of Mon-El's on sight, with his shoulder-length jet black hair, crooked nose, and his assumptions about all things Kryptonian. In one casually slung insult, this idiot has called her people both puritanical _and_ selfish. Seething inside, she doubts he's ever even met a Kryptonian before her.

"Declyn over here didn't believe I'd found a Kryptonian whore…that such a wonder doesn't exist in nature," Mon-El taunts, feeding the anger he sees growing in her eyes, just to see how it will manifest when she finally gives in to it. He gambles that it will work out to his advantage. "He says that you're probably so prudish you can't work up enough honey to get my dick wet. Isn't that what you said?" he turns to ask the younger man.

"That's what I said," he calls, the challenge clear despite the slight slur.

Unable to abide that smug smile on that too-handsome-for-its-own-good face any longer, and desperate to wipe it from existence, Kara reaches her boiling point and grabs the prince by this leather pants. "I can show him, Master," she says, as though struck with inspiration.

Mon-El feels the anger coming off her in waves – his stubborn princess. He shakes away the inappropriately tender thought, gritting his teeth and fisting his hands, angry at himself for letting it slip through and angrier at her for being so utterly, inescapably perfect. "All right," he sighs, donning a façade of boredom and ennui. "Sit on the edge of the bed," he instructs, vaguely waving a hand in the direction of the bed, "and spread your legs."

Kara rises to her feet, and as she moves toward the bed, tenacity intact, she feels the diaphanous material of her dress melt away as the prince grabs for it. Meeting Declyn's raised eyebrows, Mon-El holds the dress up and releases it, letting it float gently to the tiled floor.

Now wearing nothing but the harness and her hook, Kara climbs up on the bed in an almost dignified manner, settling herself like a queen, hands as graceful as a ballerina's. Leaning back on her hands, she feels the ball of the anal hook press deeper into her and she wants to roll into it, to feel it move more deeply inside. Her thighs are already wet with her juices, so when she slowly opens her legs to reveal the glistening moisture, her eyes affix upon the prince's insolent friend, daring him to insult her, or her kind, some more.

She's too stunning, too eager to be believed, and Mon-El must take measures to protect his heart from the way this Kryptonian bangs at it like she's trying to knock its door down. Boredom – it's a common defense mechanism he learned to employ as a teen. Show too much interest in something and someone, usually Father, will covet it for themselves. But boredom is treated like a disease that's catching, and its subjects are usually viewed as tainted.

The sight of her arrogance, her chin set hard, makes Mon-El want to cheer, almost as much as it makes him want to fuck her. Since the former doesn't fit with the spirit of his plan to drive her away, he opts for the latter. He schools his features and manner with rigid, meticulously learned control. Rolling his eyes, he sighs deeply while picking mud from beneath his fingernails, before unsnapping the closures of his leather jacket as though he's simply planning a wardrobe change. Employing techniques long used on Father and members of the Council of Traders, he moves as though unfocused and easily distracted, despite the bulge in his pants urging him to stalk her like she's a vartine calling him to his welcomed death.

As far as she will ever know, she's just another lay – in a long line of lays, waiting for his attention. His jacket falls to the floor with a heavy thud as he lazily tugs the tail of his purple linen shirt from the waistband of his leathers as he moseys over to the bed.

A sparkle of silver dangling from between her legs catches his eye as he notices the chain connected to her recuperative beads. Pressing one knee to spread her wider, the prince grasps the chain and tugs gently, feeling the resistance of her muscles as she actively tries to hold them inside. Sucking her lower lip into her mouth, her eyes twinkling with mischief, he offers his most apathetic expression, eyebrows static, eyelids blinking slowly, dully. Her reaction is instantaneous, blue eyes shuttering, aiming downwards, her beginnings of a smile, aborted. With a rougher tug, he pulls the device free, and as though he's stolen the air from her lungs, her mouth opens with a breathless gasp. Causing further surprise, Mon-El fills that open mouth with the slick balls.

"Suck them." Issuing the command in a voice suggesting he's spared not a single thought to the notion, he lazily holds the chain as she sucks the tangy cream from the metal surface. He unwinds the chains from his finger, leaving the device in her mouth, her cheeks bulging like a woodland creature gathering nuts. "Touching yourself without my permission is forbidden, Kryptonian," he announces, not an ounce of tease in his voice. Looping his fingers around the harness straps at her hips, he yanks her to the very edge of the bed. "This behavior needs to be quelled," he decides, carefully keeping any hint of passionate resolve from seeping into his tone.

" _Mmmmeeeee_ ," she whines, finding it difficult to breathe around the beads.

His hand on her chest, he shoves her upper body down to bed. "Lift your legs and grab behind your knees."

Though her master instructs her with no more interest or ardor than did Brana before providing her exam, Kara follows his command, but goes one step further. Knowing that it's unlikely she'll be able to hold her legs closed once he begins quelling her, she tucks her elbows behind her knees and then cocks her hands back to grab her heels, the stretch feeling incredible to her still-sore hamstrings. Dropping her head back onto the mattress, she closes her eyes and waits for the first blow. She doesn't have long to wait.

Having caught her in an act of defiance in front of his men, her misbehavior cannot go unanswered. This is a lesson she should have learned in the chancel, but it seems to have gone over her head. Her glistening pussy on full display for him and the rest of the team, the prince pulls his hand back and lets it fly, popping her clit with a resounding slap.

" _Mmmmeeeeeep_!" she squeals and her entire body spasms in response to the punishment, her arms pulling back against her fighting legs.

"You gave this pussy to me, fair and square, because you wanted to be my whore," he admonishes. "You practically had to beg me to make you my whore." Smack!

" _Mmmmeeeeee!"_ The pain is pleasure, streaking through her body and leaving pinpricks of sensation everywhere beneath her skin, rising faster than her brain can process it and lighting her up inside like a billion filaments smaller than the eye can see.

"You think you can take it back now?" Smack!

"Nnnnnnnmmmmmmm!" she moans, afraid that she's going to come, but she concentrates on holding her legs apart.

"You're free to leave anytime you like…you know what to do. But until you do, this pussy is mine. To do with as I please, to use as I please, to dispose of…as I please." Slap! "If my desire is to tie your legs to these bed posts and cheer as you're pile-driven by every man in this room, then you would have two choices, Pet: to cry mercy and leave, or thank them for the cum they provide," he declares, not even a sliver of possessive interest in the dangerous and shocking pronouncement. "Every single orgasm is a gift _I_ bestow." Slap! Reaching down, he grips the chain and draws the beads from her mouth, tossing them aside, and allowing her to speak. His sticky fingers fumble for the ties that hold his pants together, as he determines the time has come for the next phase of her punishment. "Do you understand me, Kryptonian?"

"Yes, Master," she replies with a heaving gulp, her eyes squeezed closed.

"Say it," he charges without bite, simply the dull tone of someone who'd rather be doing something else with someone else.

"My pussy is yours. Every orgasm is a gift you bestow," she complies, a lump the size of walnut growing in her throat. Despite his words, the indifference in her master's tone – his apathy – is like a hot knife slicing into her heart, cutting straight to all her insecurities. The worst of it is that he doesn't even attempt to feign interest, as is she's not important enough to him to warrant the effort.

When he unties the crotch of his very restrictive pants, his stiff cock, which doesn't understand the rules to the game he plays, bursts forth before he can completely loosen the strings, droplets of pre-ejaculate already pushing out of the tiny slit in the center of its head. He's forced to push the waistband down two inches to liberate the huge member completely. Praying to whatever gods might be willing to listen, Mon-El hopes he doesn't come the moment he's inside of her wet heat. Without the Callus Band, reaching climax is markedly easier, and he's thought of little else the last two days but feeling the death grip of her pussy around him again.

"I think you need further punishment," the prince decides, stroking his cock in anticipation of her waiting heat. "As a reminder."

"Yes, Master," she agrees. His punishment is something, at least, because perhaps she heard some small amount of eagerness in his declaration. As long as he continues to correct her mistakes, it indicates that he must still have some small amount of interest in her. She must welcome his punishments in hopes that they will keep him connected to her. "I deserve to be punished."

Without further preamble, or teasing, or even the slightest warning, Mon-El lines up his stiff, thick rod, and with the other hand holding her down, he stuffs it into her tight, greedy hole. He doesn't go in easy, and her entire body reacts like a bomb has gone off inside, her eyes springing open, her head lifting from the bed to watch as his long, thick meat pushes against the resistance of her passage. Her eyes widen, pupils blown with one look, clearly not expecting him to be this massive again.

Kara opens her mouth to cry out to Rao, but no words come out, only a series of harsh breaths that sound as though she's on the cusp of hyperventilating.

Knowing that their night in the chancel stretched her passage, leaving her raw and tender from his rough use, the prince grasps the center of her harness for leverage, and goes in slow, enjoying every last second of her slick, swollen pussy's resistance.

She's so tight and he's so big and… _oh_ …the height of the mattress is just right for being fucked and she's being stretched so wide again she feels like she's going to burn up inside, but it hurts so…so good. "Yeah," she whines, pushing back harder with her elbows so that her legs stay crushed to her chest. " _Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah_ ," she whimpers, licking lips she hadn't realized were dry. "Feels so good when you go deep."

"I'll make you feel it deep," he promises, a note of foreboding, a dark vow which sounds better to her than the nothingness. Leaning into her, he places his hand on the mattress beside her waist and tilts his head to look down to where their bodies merge. Slowly pulling out until just the head of his cock is still inside, he slams the remaining inches back in, putting his body weight behind it.

" _Fuck_!" she cries, her eyes searching for his before sucking her lower lip into her mouth. "Yeah," she wails, blue eyes shining up at him…begging. "Punish me, Master. I need to be punished so hard."

Despite the filthy implications of her pleas, the prince catches sight of an incongruous child-like innocence in her eyes, and it only makes him want to demolish it. Over and over, with measured strokes, he retreats and drives back in deep, his pelvis smacking her pubis with dull bone-grinding thuds. Her only response to the deliberate thrusts are sharp high-pitched whines that hit the air and dissipate immediately. Soon, her hot channel answers his unrepentant, deep strokes with a promising flutter within. " _Fuck…oh fuck, Master_!" she whinges, her eyes rolling back as flush spreads across her chest.

Mon-El whips his cock out of her and wraps his hand around the slippery tool, siding it up and down the shaft while gripping it tight with purpose. Desperate to come for two days now, it takes only a few pumps before he feels the electrical discharge building at the base of his spine, the tendrils traveling to his balls, causing them to contract tightly between his thighs.

"No," she begs, her own climax slipping out of easy retrieval. She could have had him – thought she had him back for a few moments. Shamelessly, she pleads, tears gathering in her eyes at the thought missing out on the warm gush that fills her with such ecstasy. " _Please, Master no, no, no…."_

"Your orgasms are mine," he grates out, forcing the words out past the pain and the pleasure of it. It's not as good, not as satisfying as coming inside of her – breeding her – but satisfaction and the prince are rivals of old, and he is accustomed to the numbness of imperfect pleasures. But it's important that he doesn't allow her to know that, and so he plays up the pleasure of coming without her help, closing his eyes to better fake the bliss. " _Aaagghh_ …and so is my cum. To do with as I please. You said so yourself… _hhhmmmm, yeah_ ," he groans as he pumps his fist harder, forcing a twisted smile. "You forgot… _mmmmfuck_ ….who you belong to."

"I'm sorry," she weeps, tears spilling from her eyes leaving black tracks of kohl. "I'll do better, Master…please…I'll do better."

"This is…the only way you'll…learn." Mon-El groans as finally his abdominals and ass seize, working together to eject a strong stream of his seed, arcing out of his slit and spraying her from belly button to sternum. " _Yeah, yeah...oh yeah_ , _fuck that's good_ ," he lies. Another jet of spunk spews forth with a slightly smaller arc on it. "Oh…y _eah_ ," he grunts, his voice quaking, his pumping fist speeding as he feels one more imminent release in the offing.

Ashamed of her failure, she turns her head away as the last stream of wasted cum strikes her navel, pooling quickly in the indent. She can't bring herself to look at him, shutting herself off completely from the bliss of release he doesn't wish to share with her.

"Maybe next time you think of taking what's mine, you'll remember this," he says, his breath still coming hard and fast, as his dick shrinks back to its flaccid size. "And don't think I won't know, Pet. Your forehead crinkles when you lie," he threatens, unsure from whence that information sprung. "Are you going to be naughty again?"

Gaining control over her tears, the pain of his rejection, she replies in a near whisper, "No, Master. I want to be your good girl."

"Who owns your pussy?"

"You do, Master," she sniffles.

There's something satisfying about breaking her like this, a sliver of hope that it's the beginning of this torturous end. He leaves her like that on the bed, covered in copious amounts of his spunk, promising that if she keeps her legs in the air, and if she's good, she may yet get what she wants, what she aches for. Letter perfect, she waits, only her feet flagging in determination.

"See?" she hears him say to their observers as he walks away from her. "Plenty of honey to get my dick wet. Even more if I let her come. Did you ever think you'd hear a Kryptonian beg for it like that?"

Flat on her back, Kara listens to the ruckus that six game-hyped men can make as they splash around in the pool, imbibe alcohol, and toke something called ojym weed. It could be hours or fifteen minutes, she waits, digging deep for her patience, her legs growing weary. Catching site of Brana, who's observed it all from the balcony above, Kara offers her a meager smile that tries to be happy but fails – like the rest of her.

Turning her head, she sees the dark-haired, dark-eyed friend of her master's staring at her though half-lidded eyes filled with covetous want, his eyes gleaming in the light like volcanic glass. A shiver races down her spine, but she refuses to lower her legs. Four times, Mon-El walks into her view and each time he sports an erection in need of service, but he continues to reject what waits for him.

Just when she's about to give up, to crawl off the bed and slink away to her hidey-hole, convinced that he won't even notice, he returns to her at last. Hope sprouts in her chest causing her heart to race and her face to flush. But he dashes her hopes right away, apparently not finished punishing her for her misguided actions. He tosses a towel over her face, obscuring her vision and turning everything dark.

"I'm still so angry I can't even look at you," he tells her, his dull tone belying his words. He lies, of course; his inability to look at her having nothing to do with anger at her past actions. Walking away from her, he promised himself he would leave her there, stewing in her punishment, ignored by him as he plays the bored, disinterested prince with a concubine whose name he can hardly be bothered to learn. He even instructed his men to pay her no heed, as difficult as it may be, and for the most part, they seemed to be largely successful. But he was not.

Why does she tempt him so deeply? How does she draw him in so expertly without a hint of guile or practiced seduction? Just pure, undisguised…want.

And not more than a handful of minutes passes before he convinces himself that she must be taken again; ruthlessly, methodically and completely without passion. He will fuck her, he decides, but he will not connect with her. He will simply use her for the glistening sanctuary she obediently displays and most importantly, he resolves not to ponder the paradise he finds when he's deep inside of her. Thinking about turning her on her stomach, he negates the idea, because he likes to watch her breasts bounce when he's aggressive.

Leaning over her, Mon-El grasps brutishly at one of her shoulders as he lines himself up with her entrance, wasting not a moment before pushing into her with a manly grunt. Thrusting at the same punishing pace she appreciated earlier, he listens to her string unintelligible syllables of pleasure together underneath the towel. She's so tight and hot, and getting wetter with each enthusiastic stroke. Using his thumb, he tortures her swollen clit with a few well-timed flicks that have her back arching like she's a living work of art, but when her pussy flutters around him he stills inside of her, offering no friction, no stimulation, and waits until her breathing normalizes.

"I'm going to come inside you this time," he informs her coolly, "because you waited patiently and obediently. But you don't get to come. That's for gracious whores who understand the gifts are for receiving…not taking."

"Yes, Master," her dejected, defeated voice drifts through the towel. Her entire body, it seems, melts into the mattress, as though deciding it's no longer worth the effort to participate.

He fucks her in earnest then, grabbing her heels and pressing them farther back until her toes touch the mattress. Like a rusty hinge, she squeaks at the way he stretches her body, both inside and out, as he drives into her. His guests chant jubilantly in time to his thrusts, encouraging his rough use of her. It takes only a few minutes before he's stiffening over her, his entire body clenching as though weathering a lightning strike, a deep groan wracking his chest. When at first he climaxes, her womb has the satisfaction of drinking in his cum, feeling its warmth coat her insides. At least there's that, Kara tells herself, while attempting to ignore her ever-growing lack of fulfillment and the paralyzing fear that Mon-El grows weary of her. But by the time she hears the primal grunt and sigh of completion following the final sharp thrust that accompanies his last hot spurt of seed, she feels dirty, like an utter failure who can't keep her master properly contented.

Quickly growing limp, he pulls out of her as the high of his climax dissipates, steadfastly ignoring the increasing hollowness in his chest that expands with the distance he cultivates between them. He can hear her sniffling under the towel, see her the light terry flutter as her breath comes quickly, her chest rising up and down.

Most Daxamites her age project a blasé quality when it comes to sex, having already moved on to their twentieth or thirtieth partner by now, but not his senya. She hungers for every encounter, hoping to see what's next, as one does when the banquet is still fresh. Despite her apparent tardiness in blooming (expected for a Kryptonian), she is clearly a creature of enormous, perhaps limitless, sexual energies who thrives, if not depends, on release. By denying her orgasm, he's depriving her of something intrinsic to the health and well-being of both her mind and her body, effectively starving her into defeat.

Hundreds of women he's pleasured since taking his first at fifteen, and though he did his duty by each of them, giving them their pleasure, he's never felt driven to spoil them with orgasms. To watch them come time and time again, bringing them closer to the celestial fields of Val-Or. He never promises them more than he's willing to give, prides himself in the pleasure he brings, and he _never_ spills himself anywhere but inside them, unlike how he left the opaline strings of his cum splashed on the Kryptonian's skin. But with her it's entirely different somehow, the act of owning her, mastering her. No less addicted to her climaxes than she, Mon-El doubts his ability to withhold from her for long.

Fucking has never felt as unsatisfying as it did today because he didn't give her what she needs. So much like a hollowness that he can't shake.

She releases her knees, her legs falling listlessly over the end of the bed. As though finding the sight uninviting, he closes her legs and steps away from her, leaving the towel covering her face. Mon-El knows the guilt churning in his gut over the way he treats her will stay with him until he fades from this place, but he tells himself it's better this way. So, as he walks away from the bed – from her – he tries not to hear the way her breath catches in her chest every time she breathes. He tells himself that she doesn't look like a broken doll lying there on the bed and tries to ignore the way, a moment later, she curls up into a ball, practically fading into the plush covers of the massive bed.

His teammates are lounging around the pipes, puffing the sweet smoke of ojym weed and settling down after their raucous turn at watching him use his senya, just as they'd hoped to see when they followed him to his chambers. Though boisterous and rowdy, they are little fazed by the proceedings having seen it all before in one form or another, but something about their presence reminds him of his task, and the necessity of it. They keep him honest, keep him from falling into this whirlpool of emotion that threatens to swallow him whole whenever he's near her. He thinks that it would be best to never be alone when he fucks her, so that he doesn't slip irretrievably into the maelstrom of confusing emotions he experiences when he's around the Kryptonian. Accustomed to shutting down whatever emotions he can, and hiding those that he can't, Mon-El is unused to the swirling turbulence inside his chest and hasn't the first clue how to cope with it.

Casting one last glimpse at her, Mon-El wonders why he doesn't just follow through on his threat. Why doesn't he just tie her down and give her to them, like throwing a slab of fresh meat in a pen of dozen hungry garats? It is, after all, something Father wouldn't think twice about doing, and has done in the past once he grows weary of his senyas.

But something inside, something foreign and unknown, like an exotic beast that hibernates beneath his heart, stirs enough from time to time to keep him from turning into Father. It awakens now, at the worst possible time, despite efforts to coax it back to its slumber. He tells himself that he refrains from that course because at this rate it's likely to backfire and she'll only take to it, like every other sexual playground to which she's been introduced. The truth, however, as the foreign beast roars, is that such an act could damage her in ways so deep she would carry them to the outside, like an unseen scar. Though Father would only leap upon this opportunity to make himself painfully indelible in this way, Mon-El sees a line that must be drawn.

Like a seed he regrets planting, there exists also the fear that she'll do it just for him, because he wills it. Such a concept, if true, can only mean one inconceivable thing; that she loves him. His gut fills with sorrow for her, if that is the case. Love is a concept as foreign as the beast in his chest, one he only learned of second-hand in the barely remembered stories Ral would tell of his parents and of the series of letters they found as boys, missives long ago passed between the lovers Gata and Trel. Mon-El's learned enough to know that love is destructive; turning the heart into a wasteland, and it's something with which he wants no part.

Why would she choose a wastrel like himself, when it's clear every man (and many of the women of his acquaintance) covet her pleasure the moment they clap eyes on her, just as he did?

It's all too much to think, to let in, so he does what he usually does when he can't – or doesn't want to – cope. He picks up the hose of the zuqqa pipe, places the mouthpiece against his lips and sucks in a deep breath, letting the soothing smoke fill his lungs. It takes mere seconds for a buzz to spread, making his fingers tingle and his eyes droop, the post-coital malaise pushing him to his high after only one puff, instead of his usual three. Dropping naked onto an overstuffed pillow next to his teammates, Mon-El lets the high overtake him, closing his eyes and drifting off.

When it's clear that he's gone, and she can hear his mumbling voice over by the pipes, Kara draws her knees to her chest and rolls to her side, curling into fetal position. She wishes to escape, to fly far away and feel the wind on her face but will settle for withdrawing to her alcove and pulling her curtain closed. Instead she curls into a ball, as tightly as her constraints allow and the towel over head, because her master has not given her leave to depart.

Picking at the coverlet under her fingers, Kara works to bring her emotions under control. Mon-El must have had hundreds of sexual partners, so it's no wonder that he would grow bored with her in this environment – especially without the powers that make them…her…special. No matter what sexy harness he demands she wear, nor how beautiful a motherly handmaiden claims she is, his indifference reminds her that, deep down, she's still just plain Kara Danvers.

Plain Kara Danvers, with her kindergarten teacher wardrobe, and the rampant insecurity about becoming a reporter that she works so hard to hide, about having a real boyfriend…and about being a mentor. Plain Kara Danvers who, despite her best efforts at flirtation, couldn't get James Olsen to choose her. Perhaps if she'd been more like the stunning Lucy Lane, looked more like the stunning Lucy Lane…commanded his attention more like the stunning Lucy Lane – perhaps it might have taken him a few moments, instead of six months for him to decide she was worth the effort.

And now Mon-El, Prince of Daxam, sees her as hardly worth the effort. Just like James did.

She misses her sister, a pang deep in her chest reminds her, as if she might have forgotten. Alex would know what to say right now, if she could understand any of this. She would hug Kara tightly and say something wise and probably profound that would make her feel better or at least keep her form losing hope – something Kara could really use right now.

Except to wonder what might be going on in the outside world, and if Alex and the rest of her family are frantic with worry, Kara has gone out of her way to _not_ think of Alex. Because if she did, she might have to wonder what Alex would think of all this, think of what Kara has become in this place. Of who Kara _is…_ and maybe always was. Would she think her super powered sister weak for liking the way it feels to have a collar around her neck, or to have her breasts manhandled until they bruise a rainbow of colors? Would she turn away in mortification to know that her little sister is an exhibitionist who enjoys the way it feels when an audience watches her give and receive pleasure for entertainment? Could Alex empathize with the feeling of completeness Kara feels when Mon-El comes inside of her?

From the day Kara crashed into Alex's life, she's never kept any part of herself secret from her big sister – it's an aspect of their relationship that's placed an enormous amount of stress on Alex – guided her to make choices she might not have otherwise made. Put parts of her life in stasis. Kara wonders if knowing this part of Kara would only add to the pile.

But none of that stops her from aching to see her sister, to feel Alex's arms around her. Kara's eyes well with tears again at the thought of Alex as she tries to imagine what words of wisdom her sister might off if she had all the facts and if she knew Mon-El as well as Kara does. Alex might remind her that Mon-El has a strong sense of self-deprecation, if not loathing, and that it's easier to wallow in that than accept that other people might see something more in him.

"Don't give up, Kara. The best things are worth fighting for," she can hear Alex's voice say. "You can reach him. You just have to find the right trigger."

His mind had let a few memories from the outside slip through, but from all indications, found a way to shut down that avenue, the way a Hazmat lockdown quarantines harmful bacteria and viruses. Kara can't depend on his memories of their life together to bring back his feelings for her. She must rely on the here and now – have faith in her belief that they're made for one another, and that Rao expended much effort in bringing them together at the right moment; across time, across stars, beyond prejudice, and through adversity.

"Rao in Celestia," she prays, her words a shaky whisper on dry lips. "Give me the strength to reach him. Guide my actions. Make my thoughts Yours and use his words and actions as stepping stones to build a path home. My faith I place in you, my heart in Your hands."

A peace settles over her, infusing her bones and muscles with a warmth that carries her into a deep sleep on her master's bed.


	15. Chapter 15

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngrl7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: Please read responsibly. This story is heavily BDSM. If you don't know what that is, you shouldn't be reading it. Not for youngsters.

Chapter 15/?

Mon-El awakens to the sound of a throat clearing, he peels his eyes open to discover two things. The first, and least important, is his Father's chief messenger standing over him, looking at him with intense judgment, as if he has the right. The second, is that his cock is like a grellamite gemstone against his belly, purple and impossibly hard with raging want. Just a normal morning, then.

"Have I told you how much I look forward to these morning meetings?" Mon-El snarks. Indicating his interest level in the messenger's dispatch, Mon-El grabs a pillow beside him and tugs it to his chest, tucking his head into it on the off chance he might be given the opportunity to go back to sleep. As if he could ignore the pulsing organ jutting from between his legs.

"King Vir requests your presence, Prince Lar," the man intones, hardly bothered or even surprised by the state of the Crown Prince.

"You know I hate that name," Mon-El grumbles. Every time! Every damn time and he can't even bother to get really pissed about it anymore. As expected, further sleep is off the table. No matter where he is or what he does, this is how he awakens every morning since coming back to this place.

His brain is a big fan of maintaining a certain level of unpredictability to the continuity to this hypnogogic life. He'll move from memory to memory, reliving them in no particular order, all the while forgetting much of what came before or followed after. But then while in a memory, certain things, such as the craggy, judgmental face of Father's messenger, will trigger flashes of déjà vu and Mon-El will just know that they've danced this dance a thousand time before.

Mornings, however are different. When the time comes to rest his thoughts, he'll go to sleep and no matter where he sleeps (or in what state), that is where he wakes up, with as many details the next "morning" as he left behind the night before. Mon-El jolts up, breathing an unintentional sigh of relief when he sees Ka—the Kryptonian, right where he left her, curled up on the bed.

When he's tired, he sleeps, and when he wakes – wherever that is – without fail, he finds Father's messenger standing over him, summoning him to the King's throne room. Giving him the opportunity to relive one of his least favorite memories of all time. "I don't suppose it would help if I threatened to have you chained to the back of a team of garats during the next game if you call me that again?"

Straightening his spine, the messenger swallows, "What would you like me to call you, Your Highness?"

Mon-El rolls his eyes, "Nevermind." It doesn't matter anyway. Tomorrow it will be like this conversation never happened.

The messenger casts his eyes amongst the other sleeping men. "I've taken the liberty of summoning your body man and dresser to your washroom. I will make certain these gentlemen find their way home while you make yourself presentable," he says, one eyebrow cocking upward, every word incredibly arrogant for a servant.

Mon-El rises to his feet, unashamed of his nakedness. "You forget yourself," he reminds the man of his place. This man is Father's shadow, and therefore knows what the King knows, which surely colors his attitude toward Mon-El. Usually one to let people think what they may of themselves, there is something about this man that always rubs Mon-El the wrong way.

"My apologies, Your Highness," the servant intones, though there doesn't seem a jot of contrition in his voice. "Shall I…take care of the lady as well?"

"She is my senya," he answers, his jaw tightening, his voice almost…protective. Angry that the messenger has even taken notice of her and that word of her presence will now certainly make its way back to Father. "She stays where she is until I say otherwise. Tell His Majesty I'll be with him presently. But first I need to take care of this," he says, referring to his impressive morning erection.

The messenger inclines his head, begrudgingly. With an answering nod, Mon-El stalks over to the bed as the messenger begins to wake the others.

Recalling his resolution to prove to the Kryptonian at every opportunity that she is only there to spread her legs for him, he sees his usual morning rise as an opportunity to do just that. More importantly, as if they still cling to him, he needs to cleanse his sexual palate of the softer feelings to which he almost gave reign last night before falling into slumber. Perhaps, just as much as the Kryptonian, he needs reminding that she's merely a concubine like any other and deserves no special treatment.

At some point during the night, his senya had rolled to her stomach, her feet dangling off the end of the mattress. The prince grabs at the leather straps of her harness and tugs her lithe, pliable form until her hips are at the edge of the bed. It appears his senya is a deep sleeper and does not awaken easily, which matters little to him as she is his to use at his pleasure, by her own willing and often eager admission. She does not resist his manhandling, but moans in her sleep as he adjusts her lower body until her feet touch the floor. Grasping behind a knee, he lifts one of her legs until it rests upon the mattress, spreading her open for him. With a glance up, Mon-El can see his pet's eyelids open only a sliver as her tongue lazily licks her lips, her sleepy mind utterly unaware of what's coming.

Because he can't bring himself to be a complete monster, he wets three fingers with a heavy glob of saliva, using them to lubricate her cunt in preparation for the taking. Lining up with her entrance, twice he rubs the heavy, bulbous tip of his cock, wet with pre-ejaculate, along her slit before pushing inside with a sharp thrust of his pelvis. He enters her so roughly he drives her hips hard into the mattress beneath her. "Uunnnggh," he grunts with a smirk on his lips, finding the exertions used deeply satisfying on a barbaric, animal level.

"Aaaaaaagh!" she shrieks in response. Suddenly awake, her entire face grimaces in surprise as her unprepared body stiffens against his unexpected assault. "Rao!" she cries, forgetting herself, her eyes now wide open in shock as her fingers fist against the bed's coverlet.

Gods! Morning fucks are the best fucks. He groans his pleasure, biting down on his lower lip.

"So tight," he sighs to himself, pleased by the impossibly snug fit. Slowly, the prince withdraws from her clinging, fisting passage, only to slam back in, offering no time for her body to adjust to his invasion. The hard, metal ball at the end of the anal hook she wears bears down on his cock with each stroke, providing a powerful sensation against his already sensitive member, and ratcheting up his need to own her to a state of near-wildness. Charged with a sudden rush of absolute possessiveness, one hand clamps down on the back of her neck and the other presses her hip into the bed, trapping her body in place as he fucks her.

At first, waking in middle of her master's assault is frightening for Kara, but the sound of his grunts, the burn of his cock masterfully burying itself deep within her womb, the smack of his pelvis against her ass, wakes her desire like a monster pulled, ravenous, from a long hibernation. The bruising grips on her neck and hips, and the way he physically overpowersg her, urge her pussy to grow wetter and wetter with each stroke. His relentless pounding presses the hook and ball deeper inside her recesses, stealing her breath and leaving a vacuum in her lungs that sprouts tears in her eyes. "Master," she praises, her cry barely audible over the symphony of sounds their bodies make.

"So fucking wet," he groans, satisfied at the squelching sounds her pussy now makes as he pounds it. After less than a minute of vigorous penetration, she's gone from barely a hint of dampness to thighs smeared with her juices. "Who makes you so wet?" he demands, gripping her neck tighter.

"You do, Master. Ugnh! Ungh! Ungh!" escapes from her pressed lips in time to each of his rabid thrusts.

"Who do you bow for?" he demands, speeding his thrusts.

"For you, Master," she replies over the sound of his sweaty skin slapping against hers.

"Who do you get on your knees for?"

"For you, Master."

There isn't an ounce of delicacy to his zealous plunging, nor in the sounds that his pumping hips force from her. He hungers for those primal sounds, every moment he's not inside of her – at least that, he can admit to himself.

Suddenly not quite satisfied merely by the animal grunts that pleasuring him wrings out of her, Mon-El leans down, flattening his chest against her back, surrounding her lithe body with his bulky one, and ensuring that she is completely at his mercy. Rutting hips without missing a brutal, relentless beat, he places his face against hers, breathing heavily into her cheek. Digging one hand into her hair and fisting it tight against her scalp, he grinds out a demand between clenched teeth. "Say it!"

"I am your Kryptonian whore," she mewls.

"Say it," he growls, tightening his grip on her hair, jerking her head as he ruts harder into her conquered cunt.

"My pussy is yours," she breathes, gasping as his cock slams into her tender passage, his hips smacking against her ass. "Master."

"Say it!"

"Ungh…I am slut for your cum…ungh…and a vessel…uunngh…for your scion." She will say anything. Anything but the word he tries so ruthlessly to fuck out of her.

He can feel her body, her cunt, primed to take its pleasure on his pistoning cock and he would love nothing more to feel the paradise of her greedy channel clamping and fisting around him. But that is not congruous to his plan. He must be hard and bloodless. He must be his Father's son. He must remind her that she is there to serve his pleasure and not the other way around. And for that…this has already been agreeable enough for her.

When his pleasure overtakes him – as he had no intention of drawing it out any longer than it took to work himself into a lather – the force of his thrusts goes wild. "Fuck!" he hisses. With each release of his seed he withdraws completely from her heat and drives back in, back arching, skin smacking against skin as his torqued torso traps her body more inescapably into the mattress.

When the last of this emission fills her womb, he collapses against her supine body, but only long enough to gather himself for a second or two. Before his cock even goes completely limp, he's propping himself up, withdrawing just enough to elicit a groan of disappointment from her. "Say it," he commands one last time, laying a punishing blow across her backside. "I won't give you what you want," he mumbles. "You might as well just say it."

"No," she sighs, eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted in determination.

"Then this is all you will get from me, Kryptonian," he decides, slipping his dewy cock from her. "Rough fucks whenever I please."

"I love it when you fuck me rough, Master."

"Even when I take my pleasure and leave you primed and wanting, I wonder?" he challenges. "I won't deny myself the ecstasy of taking you when I please because you're my property, but I can deny you the fulfillment of finding your pleasure."

"Your pleasure is my pleasure, Master."

Rolling his eyes, he curses, "Gods save me from a stubborn whore."

Mon-El stalks from the room into his private washroom where he finds his valets waiting, one preparing his clothes while another servant buffs and shines a pair of knee-high black boots. Pressing a button in the cleaning stall he's misted with fine droplets of soap which he quickly lathers over his body and through his hair and the three-day growth of his beard. Sufficiently cleaned, he pressed another button which provides a strong burst of misty perfumed water to rinse the soap.

When he climbs out of the stall he's attacked by a towel at the hands of one of his valets. After that, all he can do is stand still and withstand the storm that happens when they dress him. All told, his washroom takes a naked pauper and spits out a prince in less than four minutes.

Enough time, it appears, to clear the room of drowsy, hungover garata players. Like magic, all the clothes strewn about the room have disappeared, except the pile of near-liquid flesh tone dress on the floor by the pool. Mon-El picks it up and rubs the fine, sheer fabric between his fingers. He imagines dressing her in fine linens and brocades, of seeing a crown placed on her head, and shakes it away, his hands fisting hard enough to tear a large hole in the fabric. Father will never allow that vision to come to pass; the King has plans for him that don't include a Kryptonian bride.

Which isn't worth thinking about anyway, Mon-El tells himself. He's supposed to be contriving a way to get her to leave, not fantasizing about making her his mate. And after the promise of this morning's fuck, it seems like the perfect time to move forward with the next phase of his plan anyway. Before he can second-guess himself or allow the unnamed beast that's taken up residence inside his chest to intimidate him into backing out, Mon-El stalks over to the bed. The Kryptonian is in the position he left her, one foot on the floor, the other leg hitched up on the edge of the bed. His cum still trails down her legs.

The prince tosses a towel at her. "Clean yourself up," he orders.

Delicately, she shifts her position, all too aware of the ball-and-hook in her backside that's tied to the collar on her neck. The hook she's already grown quite attached to. Kara reclines at the edge of the bed, spreads her legs and wipes at the mess rolling down her legs and smeared between her thighs.

He gulps, swallowing the hard lust that already rises within him – that always rises in him. "I have been summoned to my father. You may retreat to your retiring room when I leave. Let your handmaiden see to your needs."

"Thank you, Master."

He drops the dress on the bed in front of her. "I've decided that clothing is only necessary when you're outside of these chambers," he informs her gruffly. "If I see you wearing them again in these rooms, there will be reprisals."

Kara hauls herself into sitting position, her back straightening, cognizant of the hook tied to her collar. She leans on one arm, her hair spilling enticingly down over one shoulder as she nods her understanding.

With a hard, intense stare at her, the prince seems to hesitate for a moment before stalking over to a tall chest with thin drawers near the head of the bed. Inside she catches a glimpse of sexual devices for both pleasure and pain as he roots around looking for something specific. After a moment, he locates what he seeks, withdrawing a thin, silver band, which snaps closed around his wrist.

He passes his thumb over the center of band until it lights up with a green shimmer. Correspondingly, the slave cuff on her right wrist lights up, producing a four-dimensional blueprint with a blinking red dot on the map where the prince's chambers are located. "When I summon you, the map on your cuff will appear showing you my location." He pulls her wrist towards him, revealing to her a previously hidden touch panel. "Scan your thumb across this panel three times to respond that you are in receipt of the summons." He demonstrates, and the glow of the thin band around his wrist turns a cool blue. "You will come at once." His tone leaves no room for debate.

"Yes, Master," she nods. The device around her wrist begins to tighten, imperceptibly at first as the prince watches expectantly without saying a word. It pinches at her skin, the way a blood-pressure cuff tightens around the upper arm as a doctor pumps air into it. It doesn't take long for the cuff to become painful, and not in a good way.

"Keep me waiting at your peril," he warns. He touches his wristband against her cuff and immediately the pressure releases, the dynamic device expanding back to its original size. "Understand?"

"I understand, Master," she breathes, her nipples tightening at the thought of being even further at his beck and call. Kara knows she will wait anxiously to be summoned to his side.

Without another word, he turns and stalks purposefully away from her. When the doors whoosh shut behind him as he leaves, Kara climbs gingerly off the bed, her body sore again from his use. She'd been still asleep and unprimed for his massive erect cock when he'd entered her for his animal pleasure this morning. His forcefulness, accompanied by the presence of the large metal ball nestled in her rear passage, made it feel as though he was ripping her in half at first.

Of course, it took only a moment for her body to adjust, and the streak of pain, combined with the way he held her body down, making it impossible to escape, had her pussy producing lubrication in only a matter of heartbeats. But in the aftermath, it is clear she needs a rejuvenating treatment from her handmaiden. Especially if she is to be ready for his summons at a moment's notice.

This time, Brana spends hours soothing her injuries and then grooming her by waxing every remaining strand of unnecessary hair from her body. No longer embarrassed, Kara breathes through the pain and holds in her groans as her handmaiden rips the waxed strips away from her armpits. So intimate are her attentions, Kara hardly bats an eyelash when, in the end, Brana instructs her to roll onto her stomach before waxing the fine hairs in the crevice between her ass cheeks.

Afterwards, every inch of her body was oiled and massaged until she briefly fell asleep on the table.

It's later in the day, during a Trader's Council meeting, that Lal Purn laments missing the Dinner Party where the Crown Prince's Kryptonian senya made her much-lauded debut. To the laughter and applause of the others at the table, the respected Lal expresses his desire to see the prince's senya in action.

Having suffered through the daily hell of the morning audience with Father; the degradation, the revelations that only solidify his hatred for the monster with whom he shares blood – Mon-El is left feeling small and inadequate…and burning with the need to vigorously demonstrate the opposite. This anger inside burns through him like wildfire, eventually settling deep in his balls and turning his cock into a ramrod of unbreakable grellamite. It doesn't help that his cock rises during the inconvenient time of a Trader's Council meeting, where he sits at the head of a pristine glass table that hosts twelve equally bored men and women. Nor that they'd rather talk about anything but business and, consequently, choose his concubine as their most agreeable conversation topic.

Lalla Xem laughs, pointing out the large lump of Mon-El's obvious arousal in his pants, and before he's even aware of what he's doing, he passes his thumb over his wristband, summoning his senya to the council meeting.

It takes an uncomfortable amount of time for her to respond, likely because she is unfamiliar with the palace in its entirety. But when the door to the Council chamber slides open, it's clear she's in some discomfort. She rushes to him to touch her cuff against the key on his own wrist, allowing to the device to loosen its stranglehold on her wrist.

Feeling the burn of his Father's abuse and degradation, as if each of the councilors in the room – and the Kryptonian – can see the deep-seated inadequacy written on his skin, he tears her hastily donned robe from her body and tosses it to the floor. He will show them all that he is more than up to the task of taking charge, of being a king. Hand on one shoulder, he drives her to her knees, while his other hand fumbles for the closure of his pants.

Like a well-trained Adept, Kara reaches to assist, unbuttoning his trousers just enough for his member to spill forth. She takes him into her mouth, as much as she can, and begins to suck.

Grabbing her hair, thickly braided with coins and jewels that mark her as property, he holds her still and thrusts his hips until she's deep-throating his dick. Still overly large from the Callus Band, and his inability to allow his member the prescribed rest following its use, she cannot take him in deeply enough to be physically satisfying. He thrusts several more times, the head of his cock reveling in the catch at the back of her throat.

"Gggggggccchhh…" she fights the gag, as he holds his cock in place. The prince impales her face upon his steel, as she fights to breathe through her nose. Just when the world begins to turn grey and she thinks she will black out, he's lifting her from the floor, using the straps of the harness, and placing her face down on the table, her plumped breasts smashing against the clear glass.

His thighs nudge her legs apart, opening her ready seam up to him, and guides the head of his cock into the heat that calls to him like a vartine's tune. Grasping her hair, he positions the Kryptonian's head so that her chin rests on the glass surface, and she has an unobstructed view of the table full of Intelligence Traders watching the Crown Prince use her.

Blissfully, her eyes slip closed when his cock finally fills her, her enjoyment enhanced by the dozen leering observers. "Mmmm," she groans.

"You will not make a sound, Pet," he commands. "Do you understand?" he asks, as though attempting to trick her.

She nods in reply. As a responsive and submissive sexual partner, it is against her nature to sublimate her vocal enjoyment of the sensations he arouses, but she must make every effort to please him. Kara tells herself to pretend that Alex is listening on the other side of the door.

"You should feel how hot and wet she gets for me," he taunts the men and women before them at the table. "No matter what I do to her…she takes it…and she loves it."

Kara closes her eyes and licks her lips as if to confirm his assertion.

Then the prince proceeds to make every effort to get her to break. He rams her hard in repeated attempts to steal a grunt from her. She opens her mouth, and allows his efforts to flow right through her, exiting her body as breaths of air. He tries to elicit groans by flicking her clit but receives only clenched fingers and an arched back in response.

He flips her over, onto her back and drapes her legs over his hips. Leaning forward, he withdraws and enters her heat slowly, torturing her with gentleness; his goal to earn a beg from her. Eventually angered by his own failure to win at the challenge he set against her, the prince feels the rage boil within and answers it by slapping her breasts which still elicit no sounds from her, only heavy breathing and the growing wetness in her cunt.

Though part of him, the part that rages inside, is angered by her ability to remain silent, the other part of him thrills at the fact that no matter what he does, she follows his commands. If that doesn't prove Father wrong, then nothing does. So, as a reward he draws out her pleasure. Each time her flutters begin, and she bites her lower lip against the onslaught of approaching pleasure, he retreats and waits for her ardor to cool. Then finally, after taking her to brink no less than five times he allows her to silently come on his cock. Ultimately though, he must demonstrate his mastery over her for their audience and so he pulls quickly out of her clasping heat and beats off using his hand, spraying buckets of cum all over her face, neck and chest.

In the end, he has her on her knees in front of him again, using her tongue to cleanse his dick of their mutual juices before she tucks it back into his trousers and buttons the closure, returning him to his original state. Looking adoringly up at him, with cum splattered on her face and chest, his heart skips a beat at the sight of her. "You may go," he hardens his heart, dismissing her when he's done with her.

Quietly, she gains her feet and covers herself with the discarded robe before departing the Council Chamber.

The observers at the table applaud as she leaves, but the prince is uncertain as to whether they enjoyed his performance or hers. Regardless, the anger inside of him still burns, the inadequacy not quite muted, and he only knows that his performance didn't fix the way he feels.

But all he can do it keep trying – which is what he does for the next week.

Each morning, he leaves her on the cusp of orgasm with his seed dripping out of her, only to be summoned to Father's side where over and over again he has to listen to his world get torn apart. Later in the day, with his insecurities still simmering the pit of his gut and just lower down, he summons her to fulfill his need to exorcise his demons in whatever way his mind can imagine. Each time the demons whisper to him, reminding him why he must gather the courage to send the Kryptonian away. Preferably without her learning the truth.

At every turn, her submission to him is profoundly gratifying, making that plan harder and harder to see through.

One night in his chambers, surrounded once more by close to a dozen of his sycophants, many of whom she can now recognize by name, the prince lay sprawled upon his bed as she worships his cock with her mouth. After nearly a half hour of this treatment, his hands finally grip at tightly at her harness as he manhandles her into position until she's sliding down over his rock-hard member. Her elegant, naked back undulates before him as she rides his cock while facing the crowd of spectators in their own various stages of undress and activity. Some gather around the zuqqa, smoking the ojym, while others lounge about the pool and still others bringing partners to pleasure.

"Ride it, Kryptonian. So they can see how eager you are for you master," he commands, grasping at the tight globes of her ass as he guides her movements.

Kara wastes not a moment following his instructions, lifting up on her knees and slamming back down again until he's seated deep in her channel. Over and over her skin slaps against his, her heart racing and beads of sweat breaking out on her skin. She's so full of him, the pleasure is dream-like, she must clench her hands into fists to keep from reaching for her clit. Across the room, her eyes land on Lord Ral, soaking naked in the heated pool, his arms spread wide across the pool's lip as he lounges, steam rising all around, his piercing green eyes affixed to the sight of her riding Mon-El's cock. Despite the room bustling with activity, he's the only thing she sees.

"Harder," the prince beneath her growls after a few minutes being heartily ridden, "and tighten that cunt around me." His fingers gripping her collar at the back of her neck. This action forces her back to straighten and as she rises on his cock, he tugs the collar to bring her down more forcefully upon it.

"Aggh," she groans, her hips thrusting and grinding as her pelvis meets his. "Yes, master!" In need of purpose, her hands reach down where their bodies meet, but instead of flicking her swollen bud of raging want, she fondles his balls, squeezing them until….

"Fuck!" he grunts, his pelvis rising to meet hers as his climax hits unexpectantly. He fills her in spurts that seem never-ending to both of them. With a sigh, Kara melts against him as he fills her with his hot essence, knowing it's the most she's going to get.

When he's finally spent, her master spanks her bottom and, using both hands, grips her hips and shoves her off his softening member. "Go," he demands, intentionally hardening his voice. "I'll have no more need of you tonight."

Knowing him well, she licks her lips and reminds him, "You will be hard again soon, Master. You know you will."

"Look around, Kryptonian," he smirks, waving his hand to indicate the other beautiful men and women in the room in various stages of undress, "there is a feast from which to choose. My cock cannot be expected to find satisfaction in only a single whore."

"But Master—" she protests, her heart sinking.

"Are you defying me?" he asks, the threat inherent in his words.

"No Master," she shakes her head, shrinking off the bed. Ashamed, she flees the room, tears welling in her eyes. He's never sent her away before or indicated a preference for other partners.

In the comforting warmth of her cubby hole she curls into a fetal position and tries to shut out the sound of laughter and later, what she's certain is the sound of Mon-El taking his pleasure with another. Closing her eyes tightly and plugging her ears in an attempt to shut out the offensive sounds, Kara isn't aware of her visitor crawling surreptitiously into her alcove, until he's taking her into his arms.

She opens her mouth to question, but before she can say anything, a strong hand clamps down on her mouth cutting off all sound.

The other hand brushes aside the nearly translucent sheet covering her and settles between her thighs. Unbidden, her legs spread for the intruder as two of his long fingers dive into her wet pussy, unerringly finding the source of her need. When her moans become dangerously loud, her back arching against him, he rolls her onto her back, half covering her and presses down harder on her mouth to muffle the sounds of her pleasure. Pumping two fingers in and in and out, she spreads her legs wider for him as his thumb presses hard against her clit before flicking at it in a rhythm she cannot fight.

So desperate for release, she can't be bothered to worry that it isn't her master bringing such an assault of pleasure on her. After all, it's not as if she can stop it, not even if she wanted to. Tilting her head back, she screams into his hand as the pleasure washes over her. At the height of her climax, her body stiffens, thighs clamping together to trap his hand inside of her clasping pussy. As the convulsions wane within, her thighs fall open, releasing him. Raising his hand to his mouth, Lord Ral licks his fingers clean before whispering, "I have to go."

Placing a finger over his lips, he urges her silence, casting his eyes towards the doorway, implying that he'd managed to slip away from the party unnoticed and cannot be gone for long. It would be best if his absence went remained undetected for as long as possible. With a quick kiss on her lips, he disappears as stealthily as he arrived.

It's not until she's drifting off that she fears her master will learn of the hit-and-run orgasm. She comforts herself with the reminder that her master himself told her Lord Ral's wishes are his wishes. Lord Ral's commands, her master's commands. So it isn't her fault that she took pleasure. She was simply following her master's orders.

A few nights later, Mon-El again invites a small circle to dinner; Lord Ral, Declyn Fors, Bevy Han, and Nils Yels'in, he comes the closest to getting her to cry mercy he believes he ever has before. Ordering her stripped naked, bathed and coifed, their meal is then placed on her recumbent body before she's presented to them on a long silver platter, surrounded by colorful garnishes.

He removes a succulent red fruit stuffed into her mouth before asking, "Cry Mercy?" He's quite certain of the answer he will receive.

"No, Master," she replies, the tiniest tremor in her voice, though her words provide him the consent he both craves and fears. He wants her to leave so that he can keep his secrets from her, but a small part of him wants to push her boundaries just a little bit farther.

Having his answer, he places the fruit back into her mouth, effectively muzzling her.

Her body trembles with nervousness but her trust in him hardly wavers as the four men and one woman, lean over her, their arms clasped beneath their back, as they feast their mouths upon her. But then something changes as they dine upon their meal with relish, and the lines of fear around her eyes ease away, her nervous whimpers of concern turning to moans of pleasure. No hands allowed, Mon-El sucks tangy gravy from her toes at the end of the platter, as he watches Ral and Fors each bite a sweet custard from her nipples, sucking on their treats long after the custard is gone.

Lalla Bevy Han eats strips of pylar flanks from his senya's belly, circling her tongue around and around her navel, before sucking bits of Kara's flesh into her mouth and drawing the blood to the surface, leaving deep red splotches across the Kryptonian's perfect canvas.

Nils Yels'en feasts at her thighs and knees, his long, dark hair brushing tantalizingly against the smooth skin of her snatch.

The sensations they awaken in her, while at first frightening, quickly lead her mind to darker fantasies. So aroused by the myriad mouths and tongues and teeth on just about every erogenous zone she has, Kara imagines her master deciding to take this exercise further, allowing each of them to take their turn with her until, until they come inside of her, or on her. At the moment, she's not terribly particular, she just aches to be filled. If her master ordered it, she would not object. She trusts that he wouldn't let his friends get out of control.

But, unfortunately that doesn't happen. Instead, she feels her master gently part of legs and climb between them, the tip of his tongue stabbing into her seam and unerringly locating her clit.

"Mmmmm," she whines, her thighs parting further of their own accord.

He tastes of her wet folds in earnest then, though studiously avoiding the swollen bundle of nerves that pleads for his attention. Two mouths continue suckling her breasts, a sensation she could only imagine before. The woman, Lalla Han moves to her head and leaning over and takes the juicy fruit from Kara's mouth, biting into it so that the juices drip down over the senya's lips, onto her tongue, and on her chin. Finishing the fruit, Lalla Han, licks the concubine's chin clean of the trails of red juice before sucking Kara's lips into an upside-down kiss. The woman's tongue, light and sweet from the flavor of both the ojym weed and the sweet fruit, sweeps into Kara's mouth, tangling lazily with her own. She has no time to think about how she's kissing another woman for the first time, before her master ratchets her body up another notch.

Her master flicks her clit with his dexterous tongue, dipping his fingers into her pussy. "I'm going to let you come tonight, Pet," he lifts his head to announce, before dropping back down to continue his work.

His fingertips find that sweet spot inside of her that has her moaning loudly into Bevy Han's mouth, her entire body writhing and squirming as though attempting to escape the intense pressures his fingertips foster within her. Without ceasing their attentions upon her person, the others grip at her, holding her down as the prince torments her. Lalla Han presses down on her shoulders, while Lord Ral and Fors trap her arms against the table, each using a strong hand to immobilize her hips. Yels'in contributes by forcing her thighs to stay open, even as her body tries to escape the siege of sensation bearing down upon her.

After an eternity of sucking and relentless stroking in the depths of her wet heat, she finally breaks, finally lets tumble the internal walls she's built that keep her from taking her pleasure even when she wants to reach for it. Like a gift from Rao, or perhaps as a reward for her eagerness, her master brings her to completion for the first time in…she's lost count how many days, and it's glorious. She makes a mess everywhere; all over the table and all over her master, but he seems undeterred. When he forces another climax from her, she screams into Bevy Han's mouth, and when her master compels a third ejaculation from her, she sinks into a state of near unconsciousness.

They leave her then, borne upon her silver platter like the wasted carcass of a roasted suckling pig, but floating on a cloud of ecstasy she wasn't certain she would ever get to feel again. Just as her master has taught her…each orgasm is a gift. When she comes back to herself, she crawls from the platter and makes her way to Brana who helps her to the washroom for a rejuvenating treatment.

He doesn't return to his quarters that night, but still finds her in the morning in her upstairs nook. As usual, he climbs between her thighs and takes her while she's still asleep, waking her long enough to take his rough pleasure on her and grunt the filthy things that key her up. Then when he pulls out and leaves to prepare for his audience with the king, she falls back to sleep.

Another day, another secret horror show in the throne room.

This time when he summons her, he awaits her in the chancel, where he bends her over a bench, locking her wrists and ankles in place, her ass high in the air. Using a wide-ended paddle, he spanks her rear end until it's red and raw and until she sobs with the pain of it. The pain is cathartic, as are the tears, and though she requires extra time with Brana Val and her magical abatement cream, she feels lighter afterwards than she's felt in a long while.

But spanking her until she cries, doesn't make him feel any better like he thought it might.

Other than the mornings, which he won't give up, he leaves her alone for the next three days, hoping to break this addiction he has to her heat, her skin, the soft cries she makes when he fondles her just right, the primal grunts and sexy whines she doesn't attempt to conceal when he takes her roughly, or that delicious moan of bliss when first he enters her. When not with her, he allows Ral to take her for walks and tours of the best parts of the palace, as long as they steer clear of Father's quarters and the throne room. The old king has grown so paranoid in recent years he barely leaves his secured section of the palace.

For a few days, Kara spends her free day-time hours in Capital City with Lord Ral, where he takes her to museums, entertainment venues, and to the shopping quarter. On these days, she's even allowed to wear real dresses (by Daxamite measure), so long as her collar and her slave cuffs remain clearly visible to all.

He has a marvelous sense of humor and doesn't take himself too seriously, although she can tell that he often deflects his sadness or uncomfortable topics with jokes. There's something about the warmth in his green eyes that melts her insides, weakens her knees, and it does things to other parts of her that her master might consider a betrayal. Over an early evening meal in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant, a beatific smile spreads across his face when she cracks a joke about Krypton, and she's forced to stuff the tender feelings that rise in her back into the box from whence they sprung. She must never give rein to these feelings. She loves her master, has given him her heart. And the man that sits before her is dead.

Dinner comes to a quick end when her cuff summons her for the first time in three days. Nervous, she frets that her arm will break before they can make it back to the palace, but the cuff doesn't tighten around her wrist, instead it only flashes a soft green color.

"He only wishes you to check in," Lord Ral explains.

"I should go to him," Kara replies, pressing the panel on the cuff to acknowledge the summons. "It's been days."

"As you wish," he nods, slipping her hand into the crook of his arms and leading her out of the restaurant. He raises his other arm to catch the attention of hired vehicle that can take them back to the palace.

The cuff map reveals the prince's location at the garat stables. The stables are bustling with activity in preparation for tomorrow's game of garata. Kara's told it's an important one, but she's never been invited to watch, so she couldn't say why. Princes don't invite their concubines to sit in the family box in the stadium.

He's taken aback, breath-stolen, by how gorgeous she is in the silver-gray gown that barely covers her breasts, and slits on either side that travel all the way to her ribcage. It covers everything but offers no resistance when he tears aside the front panel of the dress, works his cock out of his pants, and fucks her against the wall of Pax's stall, her legs locked around his waist, both groaning with each thrust.

Over her master's shoulder, her eyes never break contact with Lord Ral's as the prince slams into her again and again, hard enough to rattle the wooden stable wall. It's been days since he's taken his time and used her properly and that's just what he does, withholding his own release for as long as possible to remind her vigorously who owns her. Frenzied, her master rips the flimsy bodice of her beautiful gown with his bare hands to suck and bite on her nipples as his pelvis pummels hers. He digs deep, like he's trying to disappear inside of her.

Just as in the chancel, Lord Ral watches, his eyes never leaving hers, his hands never touching the tent of his crotch. She licks her lips, wishing she could get her mouth around his cock again, and maybe get a little something more. She feels guilty just for thinking it, even though everyone would say she's a true Daxamite now.

She feels less guilty when her master doesn't let her come.

They part ways at the stables when the prince sends her back to their quarters, but not before tearing the bodice completely free of her dress and throwing it to the floor, leaving her torso and breasts free for all to see on the long walk back. He likes to think that others can see, can want, but cannot touch – unless it is his will.

As she's leaving she overhears Lord Ral reminding her master that he's departing at the end of the moonrise, in a few days, but will only be gone for one full cycle. All during her rejuvenation treatment, she thinks about Lord Ral, his intense green eyes boring into hers as her master pounded her into the stable wall.

That night she breaks her master's number one rule and masturbates in the darkness of her alcove. Kara recalls the prince's cock inside of her as she flicks her clit, but pretends it is Lord Ral's instead. When her orgasm washes over her finally after three failed attempts, she cries from the guilt of it. Surely, he will take one look at her and know.

But he doesn't know. When he comes to her in the morning, she makes all the sounds, moves her body in concert to his ravenous taking, but barely opens her eyes, even when he tugs at her nipples with his teeth. She can pretend it's Lord Ral that way. Is this mere curiosity, an itch that needs scratching, or something a little…more?

For the next two mornings, she serves his needs, and twice she's summoned to him after his morning audience. Once to a library of ancient books, where he has her on a table in front of enormous windows spilling red sunlight into the room. He is uncharacteristically gentle this time and comes with a deep sigh as though relieved to be free of an invisible burden. The very next day she's back in the chancel, chained to two crossed bars shaped like an X. He doesn't spank her raw this time, but instead turns her own pleasure against her, using a high-powered vibrator to force orgasm after orgasm upon her until, after the seventh one, she begins to weep.

"Are you crying mercy?" he smirks, a flint of hardness in the pupils of his silver-tinged eyes.

"No," she sniffs, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Thank you, master…for the gifts you give me," she whimpers.

He doesn't quit until she comes five more times and her body is left useless and dangling on the end of the cross's chains. He leaves her there for an hour, until finally Lord Ral arrives to release her and gently carry her back to the prince's quarters. He sets her on the treatment table but before he can leave, Brana places an icepack between her legs to bring down the swelling, but the shock of it nearly causes her heart to stop beating. He holds her hand, tethering her to this world, and when she begs him to stay, he nods his agreement. He doesn't leave her side until, after her complete treatment, he carries her to her nook and tucks her beneath the covers. She's asleep before her head hits the pillow. When next she wakes, Brana tells him that his planned transport has already departed.

The next morning, she cries when she comes on her master's cock while he's fucking her. She can't help it, since her clit is still so sensitive, and his pelvic bone grinds against it just right. She expects reprisals, but he's forgotten how blissful it feels to have her cunt ripple and clasp around him, that he too nearly weeps with the joy it gives him. He lets it slide this time, but when he pulls out and retreats toward his retiring room, she catches an intense expression of disturbance on his face.

Eight days later, after another extended sexual performance for the prince's court (sans Lord Ral) which ended with the prince leaving her leashed overnight to a hook attached to the wall, the prince emerges from his dressing room, neat and tidy, to stand over her naked body. Bending down to unleash her, he allows her to stand and stretch her tired muscles.

He's needed an absence from her, and time alone, to summon the nerve and the will to do what he knows he must now do. His stomach roils like the water in his zuqqa bowl when it's burning the ojym weed. Mon-El grits his teeth and clasps his hands behind his back, gathering his strength. "I have a task for you, Pet." He plasters a fake smile onto his face.

"You do?" she perks up. These are the last words she expected to hear from him. Her prayer to Rao, long ago now, may finally yield fruit, providing her direction and purpose. "Of course, Master," she licks her lips and swallows, hoping to work up some moisture in her mouth. "What is your desire?"

"Lord Ral has gone to visit his mother in Lebdon Oasis, as he does several times a year. She has been…unwell for a while now and Father has placed her out there so that he doesn't have to deal with her. Which I suppose is a mercy given what he's rumored to have done to his previous wives…."

"Your mother?" she asks tentatively. "You never talk about her…."

"We don't discuss my mother!" he snaps, eyes hardening and hands fisting. It's still quite impossible to talk about, nor does he think that will ever change. She cringes at his manner, tucking her head down as though his words have struck her like a physical blow. Playing the sexual brute to get her to leave is one thing, but snapping over something she couldn't possibly have known, or had control over, is another thing entirely. For the first time he expresses remorse for his treatment of her. "My apologies," he says gruffly. "My mother is a subject I don't discuss."

"I understand, Master," she nods, but doesn't lift her eyes.

"As I was saying…it is a difficult journey for Ral and he always returns feeling…" he searches for the right word, the politick word, "dispirited."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Master," she consoles, her eyes remaining shuttered beneath a fall of hair. "How can I help?"

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" he inquires, leading her exactly where he wants her to go. Setting her on her path home. "To help him in any way you can? It hasn't escaped my notice that a friendship has struck up between the both of you."

"Of course, Master. And he is your…family," she decides, looking up, her teeth breaking through her lips like a ray of sun through the clouds. "If helping him makes you happy…."

"It would," he acknowledges. "It would make me very happy if you helped to lift his spirits." Squaring his shoulders, he attempts to prepare for any one of a hundred reactions he might get from her. "He likes to go to the secret garden on the north side of the palace after he returns, preferring to brood while surrounded by its beauty. I find his brooding to be off-putting, especially since it usually lasts for days. This is where you can be of assistance, my pet. I noticed his spirits are very much lifted after he spends time with you. There are a few lovely spots in the garden where you can service him. An overgrowth of magenta wildflowers actually—"

"Service him?" she asks, sucking her lower lip into her mouth. "You want me to…?"

"It's no secret that you find him attractive," he answers, as if her confusion is illogical. "You did an admirable job sucking his cock in the chancel." He grasps her chin and forces her face upward, his thumb and fingers digging into her cheeks until her mouth is distorted and unable to form decipherable words. "Don't lie," he commands, fully aware that she couldn't speak if she wanted to. "I can tell when a woman enjoys it. And I'd have to be blind not to notice the way you look at each other. So much…lust. And of course, as my bond-brother he makes no secret of his desire for you. He's quite enjoying the anticipation. Knowing your Kryptonian nature, he has no desire to force his attentions on you or assume too much. I had hoped that his charm would win you over and that you would offer yourself to him without prompting. But I see now that I was expecting too much of you. Clearly…I'm going to have to make it an order. Find him in the garden when he returns and let him fuck you, Pet. That won't be a problem, will it?" he asks, drawling his words pointedly. Once again, he offers her the option to use the portal, making it seem less like failure and more like a victory should she choose to take it. "You're not going to be a Kryptonian about this, are you?" Mon-El rolls his eyes for affect. "It's just so…tiresome."

"No, Master. I will…do as you wish." Kara's head spins, the prince's words bouncing around her head. He had wanted her to offer herself to Lord Ral? After all this time of fantasizing and wishing, he's giving her permission…no…ordering her to reach for what she wants? There must be a catch. For a fleeting moment, she wonders if this is some sort of trap. Perhaps he knows about the masturbation after all and wants to draw her into a situation where she will beg for punishment in the end. But those sorts of sexual games, with hidden agendas, aren't Daxam's way. They prefer to keep everything in the open, out there for all to see. It makes the identification and correction of lies and petty jealousies easier.

"Lord Ral's sexual requirements are much less rigorous than mine, so you may go to him without trappings, except for cuffs and collar. I can't have you forgetting who your master is."

"No, Master."

"Wear something pretty…hmmm? And easily removable." When she agrees with a compliant (if not eager) nod, he graces her with a rare smile. "Good girl," he chucks her under the chin like a child and then turns to go. "Oh," he says turning back before reaching the door, "do you remember what I said about Ral?"

Kara feels as though she's being tested in some way, asked to prove that she listens to every word that passes Mon-El's lips. Thankfully, she recalls everything he said about Ral, both in this world and the outside, since it all seemed to be of extreme significance to him. Kara makes an educated guess as to what he's seeking from her. "He is the First among Nobles. Lord Ral's wishes are your wishes," she repeats, "his desires, your desires. His commands are your commands."

"Very good," he praises, honestly. "Perhaps you can get from Lord Ral what you need, if it pleases him. He's not one to withhold. But then…the responsibility of keeping you in line falls to me…not to him," the prince points out, with a sigh, as though heavily burdened by the task. "He has that luxury. Just remember that when you're with him…whatever he desires."

She can't help but feel as though there's something he's not telling her. "As you wish, Master."

Brana awaits her at the top of the stairs and leads Kara in to her private washroom, where they begin the ritual with removal of her anal hook and harness.

"You're trembling," Brana notices, taking Kara's hand, "And your hands are cold, Senya."

"I've never…."

"You've never what?" the woman inquires, holding Kara's hands as she helps her into the bath.

"I've never…done it with anyone but my master." Can she go through with it? Fantasies and masturbation are one thing, but actions take a new level of courage. "I mean…not really."

"Well then, it's high time you did," Brana answers matter-of-factly, with a chuckle. "His Highness may have unsurpassable skill and experience…I hear…but he is only one man, after all, and I suspect that he knows that. And everyone should experience as many lovers as possible to truly drink deep of life's pleasures. No man, or woman, wants to be chosen because they're the only option available."

It strikes her then that, perhaps on a psychological level, Mon-El must feel that way – as if Kara chose him because she had no other choice. Now he gives her the opportunity to gain the experience she never could in the outside world so that she can choose him with her eyes wide open. While that makes sense to her in a way, it also makes her a little melancholy, she can't help but feel he seemed a little too eager to send her off to service his stepbrother. "I suppose a part of me…wants him to be a little bit…. jealous?" she confesses.

"Do you still not understand our ways?" Brana shakes her head. "What has he to be jealous of? He has taken ownership of you. You wear a collar he has placed around your neck from which only he can free you. He knows you belong to him, and as long as you know it too, there's no reason for jealousy," Brana points out. "Even if you take pleasure with a thousand partners."

"So…I can just…have sex with anyone I want?" Kara hears the seeds of intrigue in her own voice. On the outside, she would likely never consider experimenting in the way her mind already reels, it's just too dangerous…for her potential partners, not to mention fraught with judgement and culturally inherent negative opinions. But this…this is like really lucid dreaming. And you can do anything in your dreams.

"As long as you can find a way to make it seem like his idea," she chuckles, not even a glimmer of judgement in her eyes. "But I'm certain there are those he might want you to avoid for political reasons, or because he wishes to keep you safe. As long as you never forget who your master is."

"How could I forget?" she asks, holding up her cuffed wrists. "But I must confess…I hunger for Lord Ral."

"Then it is convenient that your master commands you to service him. Relish it. You are a lucky senya. Most have little choice or consideration over who they're required to service at their master's whim."

Here…it's like their time in the chancel woke some hibernating monster and now it's stalking about searching for sustenance and is willing to sample just about anyone that steps in her path. She looks at every attractive clothed man and wonders how big his cock is, and for the naked ones, she tries to imagine how it would feel inside of her – how his cum would taste. Of course, part of her wonders, hopes, that this ostensibly bottomless hunger is something that only exists here because she unconstrained by mortal flesh.

They speak more of these rules, both written and unspoken, of being a senya on Daxam. Kara no longer flinches when when Brana runs the soapy sponge through her sensitive folds or later when she examines her with routine precision before applying the anti-inflammatory crème and inserting the therapeutic beads. And she hardly flinches now at the prospect of hair removal, quite enjoying the soft feel of her legs and the smooth, velvety surface of her bare vulva. She knows her master enjoys it too.

When Kara's body is oiled and massaged, her skin smooth and supple, her hair curled and coifed with strategically placed bangle coins braided into its lengths for decoration, Brana brings her a gossamer gown to wear. It's floor-length and covers everything – or it would, if it weren't made of material even more diaphanous than the dress that attaches to the harness. It is beautiful though, made of nearly pure white chiffon-like material with silver threads running through it to catch the light.

Straps barely cling to her shoulders, and the décolletage is so deep it dips down all the way to her naval, only a single silver clasp and delicate chain between her breasts holding the entire confection together. Slits up each side go past her hip and all the way up to her waist line, a silver clasp and chain holding the sides together at the upper thighs. One false move and she'll be naked in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or one simple move and she's be naked at just the right time.

It's like trying to wear a cloud.

On Kara's feet Brana places a pair of sandals that are hardly more than feet ornaments that match the silver cuffs she wears on her wrists and the collar around her neck. Brana explains that the paper-thin and perfect clear leather soles are as strong as pata'an hide and she won't even feel the ground upon which she walks. One each foot, Brana threads Kara's big toe into a wide silver band and then laces the thin silver cording through the molded piece cupping her heel, twining it up her calf to just under her knee, where the ends clasp together.

Prepped for seduction, Kara waits in the upstairs sitting area, swiping at the Quantex screen as she half commits to reading a book she found in the Daxcess library. Her mind flashes back to the Lord Ral in the chancel. How he'd watched her every move, supporting her and encouraging her even when events had been trying, like how his soft green eyes had held hers even as her master had jammed the ball and hook inside her tight rectum. And then later, when they'd gotten to know each other better, how his eyes refused to break contact with hers as the prince had fucked her in the stables. As though they had both been imagining a time when it would be their turn. Maybe he'd known then, as she could not, that it was only a matter of time. Kara can feel a warm gush between her legs at the notion.

In the chancel, when her master and Lord Ral had spit-roasted her on the bed, Master fucking her from behind while Lord Ral took her mouth, the taste of his cum in her mouth had sent her into bliss. But she had wondered, after it was all over, if that attraction had been merely a product of the situation. Fuck-dumb with sex, Kara's guard had been lowered, and she would have likely taken most of the cocks in that room into her mouth and done so in haste, only to repent in leisure.

"But you didn't repent," Alex's voice points out, in the tone she uses on Kara when her little sister engages in a little too much historical revision. "Not even a little bit."

"Fine," Kara mumbles, giving in. Her nipples tighten with painful arousal, and she must resist the urge to pluck and twist them to relieve the pressure. She knows now that the attraction to Lord Ral is not situational.

Worrying over her attraction to Lord Ral (and his to her) is a waste of time on Daxam, especially when the experimentation with sex is not only actively encouraged, it is expected. Nervously, Kara reaches a conclusion that she will do as her master commands, because it will please him (even if she still finds that hard to believe) and because she's curious. But whether or not she takes enjoyment in servicing Lord Ral, will be something she plays by ear. If, upon seeing him again, talking to him, she feels desire for him, Kara commits to following her gut instincts and listening to the organ between her legs, instead of the provincial conservative moralities of both Krypton and Earth.

When in Daxam, do as the Daxamites do…she decides.

"Senya?" her handmaiden pokes her head into the sitting area alcove.

"Yes, Brana?" she looks up, realizing she's been staring into space for some time now. The Quantex in her lap was ignored so long it powered down on its own.

"I took the liberty of having Lord Ral tracked, so we knew when he returned to the palace."

"He's returned?" she infers, setting aside the Quantex and standing. Taking a moment, Kara adjusts her white gossamer gown, as if it might somehow suddenly cover more of her body and then, upon second thought, abandons the task. Instead, like a Daxamite, she readjusts the gown so that more of her flesh shows, revealing the curve of her breasts and the expanse of both thighs.

"Yes, my lady. In the Old Palace Gardens, as His Highness predicted."

"Well…no time like the present," Kara says, squaring her shoulders with determination, trying to ignore the wainscot of butterflies that have taken flight in her stomach, or the shiver of undeniable arousal that streaks down her spine.

"I will escort you there," Brana insists, "and then come back here to wait upon your return."

Breathing a sigh of relief, as though receiving a last-minute pardon, Kara nods, "That would be appreciated."

Departing the chamber, which she has quickly come to think of as her home away from home, Kara listens to Brana's subtle instructions coming from behind. She clasps her hands demurely in front of her, hyperaware that the palace bustles with activity and that many of those people are not only taking notice of her but are openly staring as she walks.

Digging deep to find her confidence, she straightens her shoulders, jutting out her barely concealed breasts. It occurs to her as she watches women whisper about her behind their hands, and men openly ogle her with the fire of desire in their eyes, that Brana hadn't simply offered to escort her out of courtesy.

"You were afraid I was going chicken out, weren't you?" she asks, subtly turning her head to the side.

"Chicken out?"

"Lose my nerve," Kara clarifies.

"I believe you have every intention of completing the task your master set forth, Senya, but intentions often erode in the face of such…scrutiny. Especially for one unaccustomed to Daxam's ways."

She's not wrong, Kara realizes. Walking through these people, seeing these faces hungering for her like she is the oasis in the middle of a vast desert, might have once been enough to test her resolve, possibly sending her scurrying back to the safety of her quarters. But she has walked these corridors before, been ogled before while answering her master's summons and then afterwards, returning to their quarters used and exhausted, and now she straightens her spine and holds her head high. She lets them ogle her, lets them imagine that she's theirs for a day, or a night, or just a few hours to do with as they please.

She is no longer unaccustomed to Daxam's ways. She has become quite assimilated.

Brana leads her out a discreet palace exit onto a stone pathway that takes them to an old wooden door. Not what she expected. The garden's walls are tall, at least three stories, and Kara tilts her head back for a good look, concluding that the garden itself was built into the ruins of an ancient structure.

"The previous palace was destroyed by missiles fired from a Kryptonian dreadnaught in the War of Aggression…one hundred and seventy-five years ago…." Her voice trails off, as though recalling too late that the woman she speaks to is, in fact, Kryptonian. "I'm terribly sorry," she mumbles.

"No," Kara sighs. "It's the truth. I'm the one that should be sorry."

Approaching the paint-chipped wooden door, Kara's first impression is that one good shoulder hit would bring the thing tumbling down, and her second impression is that there's no door knob. Placing her palms on the door, she pushes lightly against it and when it doesn't give, she shoves harder, perplexed as to why the door won't open. There's a knocker in the center, and she wraps her hand around the metal ring and knocks on the door which, strangely, only provides a muffled thud. "Well, that's no…good," she huffs.

"Senya, if I may," Brana interrupts Kara's troubleshooting thoughts, and grasps her by the wrist. Turning her silver wrist cuff outward, she passes the face of the bracelet in front of the door knocker. A hidden iris, about an inch in diameter, opens in the door and a wide green light spills out, scanning the face of the cuff. The laser transfers into the fine geometric grains of the jewelry, sending green light racing the length and breadth of it, reading it for her identify and access permissions.

"Welcome," a voice intones from an indeterminate source and the "wooden" door slides open into a pocket in the stone. Her position as the Crown Prince's senya gets her in to places closed to other people. Noted.

"Thank you," Kara says, half to Brana and half to the disembodied voice.

"I will await you in chambers," Brana curtsies and turns to leave.

Before she can step into the garden she has one last thought and stops Brana from leaving. "Oh, wait!" she exclaims, the handmaiden turning back to the senya. Threading her hand beneath the sheer fabric of her gown, Kara finds the chain tucked between her legs and pulls, slipping the recuperative beads from their nest. "I won't be needing these," she grimaces, handing them over to Brana, who takes them without batting so much as an eyelash and walks away.

Kara steps in the garden, the door sliding closed behind her, as though it had patiently awaited her entrance. It takes but a glance for Kara to discern that the secret garden is more than just a garden – it's an ecosystem – a private oasis in the middle of a desert. She can hear the sounds of birds in the trees and what's possible the mating call of some woodland creatures she can't quite catch sight up. Far above her ahead something akin to a flying squirrel moves between the tall trees, shaking loose some of the leaves as it goes.

The skeleton of the previous palace is intact, and where once there were rooms, there are now individual gardens, quiet places for solitude where one can be alone or…not. One garden is accessible through an oval-shaped entrance that once used to be a window, but now stands as a gateway to a magical plot of land alive with flowers the brightest of fuchsia and teal.

Gravel crunches beneath her feet as Kara forgets why she came to the gardens in the first place, too entranced by its beauty to worry about anything else. Archways of magenta, walls of mustard yellow flowers that wind their way through the cracks created long ago, and tiny bronze colored petals of a prolific flower in every corner, all capture her attention. She considers picking some of her favorites and take them back to her room, but rejects the idea, imagining it might be seen as a violation of some kind. Committing a rude example of Kryptonian entitlement is the last thing she needs right now.

Stumbling upon him in what appears to have once been the central chamber of the palace, reminds Kara of what she came here to do. Ducking behind a pillar, she watches him secretly from her hiding place, catching her breath at what she sees. In the center of the garden is a pool, steam rising from the surface – a hot spring. Like much of the rest of the garden chambers there's a gravel walkway, but this one is laid with old rugs from the palace, lending it the air of a place the once hosted great dignitaries but had long ago passed its prime.

A couple's lounge, a full-size bed on a wooden sleigh-bed frame, sits low to the ground, covered in a once-rich and threadbare blanket, bolster pillows at each end for resting.

Facing her, Lord Ral stands at the very lip of the steaming spring, his lean, naked body dripping with water as it moves fluidly through the motions of a Tai-Chi-like form. His eyes closed, he breathes evenly – carefully controlled – as he confidently slides his feet from one position to another, unconcerned that he's millimeters away from falling into the pool behind him.

Lord Ral glides his left foot backwards, the ball of the foot finding purchase at the water's edge and Kara gasps, debating whether she could call out a warning. His next move is so quick and so fluid, the opportunity passes before she can even speak, so she allows her body to relax back into observance.

His body is so different from Mon-El's, she observes, having her first opportunity of observing it without the distraction of his cock fucking her mouth. Where her master is thick and muscled through the chest, back and thighs, Lord Ral is lean and sinewy, though no less strong it appears. Shaggy blonde curls on his head beg to be tousled; Kara's starving mind envisions her fingers gripping tightly at them as he plunges into her wet heat, as his six-pack crunching with the effort of each thrust. A beard, beyond stubble now and redder than she might have guessed based on their earlier encounter, graces his face and Kara's hard pressed to determine if it adds to the angelic beauty of his features, or diminishes from it. It's not hard to imagine that he's devastatingly handsome either way, but she sees a gorgeous fallen angel now, rather than the guardian from before.

His pectorals and arms are well defined, his abdominals so tight they're practically concave. Unable to resist, her eyes travel downward, lingering on the defined obliques creating the V-shape that leads her eyes down to the flaccid member dangling from a nest of curly blonde hair. Even unaroused it is…not inconsiderable, and Kara's gut clenches at the thought of feeling it inside of her, of all that skin against hers, of his body stiffening beneath her hands as he comes.

Her attraction to him in the chancel was certainly no fluke, she decides, breathing heavily but trying to control it before she becomes lightheaded. Hungry, her body heats up, her skin prickling as if lit on fire from within by a billion tiny torches. Her left breast remembers vividly the way his mouth sucked on it, slow and languidly, as though she was the sweetest thing he'd tasted in a long time and he was determined to savor every second. The memory races from her hardened nipples straight to her clit.

She's on fire and, in a blatant act of defying her master's strict commands, Kara reaches between the slit of her dress and dips two fingers into her wet seam. She flicks her clit as she watches Lord Ral's body move with the same mutability as the steam rising above the water behind him. Kara doesn't know why she doesn't just step out into the garden courtyard and reveal her presence. If her desire for him is so acute, why not make herself known and service him as her master commands? "Almost there," she whispers, her fingers moving faster and faster.

It bears down on her like a river of molten lava, her own abdominals tightening as everything begins to draw up inside of her, contracting in preparation for an explosion. Squeezing her eyes shut, Kara leans her forehead against the broken column, bites down hard on her lower lip, and waits to be overtaken.

Instead, as though punishing her for her insolence, she's pelted with a mist of cold water emanating from strategically placed sprinklers hidden within the creeping vines sprawling along the old palace walls. It's quite disturbing how hard a fine mist of water can eject from a sprinkler.

Forgetting her voyeurism, Kara screams, bursting from her hiding place while holding up her hands to shield her face from the pelting mist. She pivots this way and that, seeking shelter from the onslaught but no matter where she turns, there's only another sprinkler blocking her escape. Set on a timer to hydrate the plants in the desert oasis of Capital City, the sprinklers shut off in unison after an interminable moment, offering their victim mercy at last.

Spitting water from her mouth, she hasn't the time to curse the blue streak building in her head, when she hears the sound of Lord Ral's laughter. Wiping the beads of misted water from her face, no doubt destroying the alluring make-up Brana had meticulously applied to her face in preparation for the seduction, Kara gathers the dangling shreds of her composure.

"I was wondering when you would make yourself known," Ral guffaws, the comedy of her misfortune doubling him over with mirth. "I haven't laughed…." He gasps, sucking in a breath to fuel more laughter, "I haven't laughed like this in ages."

Feathers ruffled, Kara spins around to challenge him. "You knew I was there the whole time?"

The view from the back was glorious, but from the front she is majestic, like a living statue of the goddess Lure, despite the streaks of kohl running down her cheeks courtesy of the sprinkler system. His mouth turns to arid wasteland and he gulps in a failed attempt to lubricate it again, his grin slipping from his face, humor forgotten. Hunger fills him now, the feeling of a caged beast left unfed for far too long. Blood rushes to his cock.

Afraid that she's offended him in some way with her challenge, her heart skips a beat and she lifts the skirt of her dress to keep from tripping when she approaches him. Which is when she discovers that the front of her dress (all of it, actually) is plastered to her skin. Looking down at herself, breasts and belly showing clearly through the wet, white chiffon of her dress Kara begins to formulate a conclusion as to why Lord Ral's mirth turned to something hungry when she turned around.

"My dear, Kara…," he gulps, unable to do anything to stop the emphatic stirring of the member between his legs, "you would make an abysmal spy." As though an answer to his prayers, she delicately lifts the hem of sheer gown and approaches him.

He's too much of a gentleman to force his desires upon her, she knows, by the prince's own admission. Despite the speed with which his cock stands to attention, where other Daxamite men might flaunt it, grasp it, or stroke it, to leave no doubt in her mind of their intention to put it to good use, he patently ignores its existence. He will depend on her to make her wishes known, and to do so with pristine clarity.

Reaching down with both hands, she gracefully pinches her gown between her thumbs and index fingers, lifts its hem and saunters toward him, her eyes seeking his like a missile to target. "I'll have you know…I would make an excellent spy, my lord," she approximates her most cat-like purr.

Her lips lift on one side as she grows closer to him. Ral feels crowded despite the ample space in the courtyard, and though he attempts to rein in his calm, his heart practically beats out of his chest, and his lungs steal oxygen from the air around them as fast as they can. "A spy…m-must be invisible," he reiterates, gulping back his need like a virgin before his first lesson with an Adept. "And you are hardly that," he says, forcing his voice to remain strong and confident. "You are never that."

Being with an Adept has never felt like this.

When her fingers finally touch him, brushing against his pectorals with an ephemeral, feather-like touch, the muscles leap with anticipation and Ral must restrain himself from devouring the negative space between them and pulling her into him until their molecules meld them into one creature. His cock extends for her, doing its level best to bridge the distance. Ral observes, frozen and curious, as her fingers trail down his pectoral to his upper abdominals and then to the line of definition that separates his obliques from his lower abs.

Dipping her finger into the pronounced crease of his obliques, she follows its direction down and down, wrapping her small hand around his generous cock and flicking her thumb over its oozing head.

His respiratory rate increases, and Ral grits his teeth against the sensual onslaught of seeing her graceful hand a breath away from stroking him. "You play with fire, Sunshine…," he groans, half-satisfaction and half-threat.

Cupping him gently in her hand so that just her fingertips caress the underside of the shaft, she watches the shift as the pupils of his breathtaking emerald eyes blow wide until there's only a sliver of bright color. "I'm not afraid of burning," she confesses. "If this is the torch."

Forcing his mind to focus for one moment, though he wants to take her hand and wrap it more firmly around his dick and show her just how to use it, Ral tears his eyes from the flesh and blood goddess before him and looks over her shoulder. This is, in no way, happening in the way he expected or fantasized about – not that it's an abhorrent development by any means.

Since boyhood, Ral and his bond-brother have shared everything of importance as well as many, many events of staggering insignificance. Including their first Adept. So many lovers have been shared in the chancel that Ral long ago lost track of their number, their genders, and even species. But they have always been shared – taken together, and usually in full view of a gallery of observers. Much as they had taken Kara together in the chancel.

Gods, it feels like it's been a lifetime since she'd taken him into that mouth, so perfectly suited for sucking cock.

"What has your master to say of this, Senya?" he wonders, pointedly using her title while expecting Mon-El to barge around the corner, late from some duty or frivolity of some kind. "Does he join us?"

Kara answers with a shake of her head, biting her lower lip as she debates which part of this moveable feast she will sample first. "It pleases him," she informs the stock-still Lord Ral, "that I should come here and serve you, my lord."

Ral squeezes his eyes shut, and tilts his head back, swamped with the desire to take her to the ground and sink into her heat like a frozen man dying to get warm.

"And you, Kara?" he asks tentatively, a part of him fearing her answer. "Does it please you?"

"I've imagined it for a long time," she answers coyly, her fingers wrapping around his girth and stroking him gently. "And I know you have too."

Releasing Ral's erection (to his great and visible disappointment), Kara reaches for the silver clasp at her breast and unfastens the hook. With a shrug of her shoulders she peels the diaphanous gown down her body until it pools at her feet. Finally, Kara stands before him wearing nothing but her collar, the silver wristbands that mark her as the senya to the Crown Prince, and a pair of silver sandals with thin straps that lace up to just below her knees. She carefully observes his face, and the way his green eyes rake her body with the same eagerness as one witnessing yards of naked flesh for the very first time.

Dropping to her knees before him on the ancient handmade rug, Kara takes him into her mouth, smiling around his cock as he pants and groans. Fisting a hand in her hair to steady himself, Ral's head drops back in pure bliss as her warm mouth sucks at his cock in slow, gentle pulses, designed to torment.

Ral prays to any god who might listen that his knees won't buckle.

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes: PLEASE READ RESPONSIBLY. THIS IS NOT A STORY FOR MINORS AND CONTAINS HEAVY ELEMENTS OF BDSM.

Chapter 16/?

Sucking his cock is a comfortable place for her, on her knees as her mouth bobs up and down his shaft while his hands grip her hair. Kara's been here before, tasted of this flesh, which makes it a place of strength for her – an excellent jumping off point for more. Quickly, her body remembers where it left off before she was so rudely interrupted by the automated sprinklers, her cunt once again throbbing with hunger at the salty taste of his steel.

"Kara," he moans, his hips moving ever so lightly to match her bobbing head. Ral can feel the head of his dick hitting the back of her throat, which only makes him want more.

She soaks it in – the sound of her name on his lips, sending a shiver down her spine. His voice is slightly accented, with a bit of a clip that she finds extremely sexy. He's the only one who calls her by her name here; while most use her title, and Mon-El prefers to keep his distance by calling her 'Kryptonian', or reminding her that she is his pet, just as he is her master. Her name sounds so good when he says it. Reaching up, she cups his sack with one hand, squeezing the balls together so that they rub, ever so gently against one another.

Slurping and slurping, her mouth grows wetter around him as he opens his eyes to stare down at her, taking him in so deep, her mouth impossibly wide to accommodate him. Smeared kohl around and beneath her eyes, make them seem brighter and even more celestial than usual, and when she gazes up at him, her eyes shuttered with pure lust, she almost unmans him right then and there. Unlike his bond-brother, genetically enhanced with enviable sexual stamina and a nearly non-existent refractory period, Ral is blessed only with what the gods saw fit to give him in his birthing matrix, and the skills he has honed through practice.

But growing up with Mon-El meant learning to compensate to keep up, which is why it's whispered about the palace that Ral is one that seduces with charm and not the crook of a finger. That he can make his erection last for hours, by taking himself to the edge and then knowing just when to pull back.

Boldly, Kara grabs his free hand and places it on the other side of her head, her eyes begging him to take over. He complies, gripping her hair more tightly and, keeping his own hips still, sliding her mouth up and down his growing tool.

"Suck it," he urges, his hips jerking.

When he's too gentle with her, not pushing to take him deeply enough, she encourages him by sliding her hands up the back of his legs and grasping the globes of his ass. Kara opens her throat for him as best as she can and moans, hoping that he can read her desires. Thankfully, he can and does, finally holding her head still and allowing his pelvis to do all the work at last, fucking her mouth until she's gagging at the power of him. Happily, she closes her eyes as he uses her, gagging each time the head of his penis invades the back of her throat, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes as gaining a full breath becomes a challenge.

Growing closer to the pinnacle of his pleasure, he groans accolades in her honor. Some filthy and some venerable. "Your mouth is made for fucking," with one breath and with the next, "Your perfection is blinding." Having come in her mouth before, his cock now seeks different climes, and so Ral withdraws from her warm and eager welcome. Instead of pouting, she nods when their eyes meet, as though her thoughts tend in the same direction.

Leaning forward, Kara places a hot, open-mouthed kiss on his belly, in the crease of one of his obliques, her hand stroking first his outer thighs before climbing to his ribs. His cock brushing against her chest, she slowly kisses her way across his concave stomach to the other side. Rising to her feet, Kara's kisses spread upwards to his ribs and chest and then finally, his neck.

Her hands caress both side of his neck, her mouth hovers over his, teasing him with a kiss she doesn't quite deliver. "I want you to come inside my pussy, my lord," she finally confesses, her body already hungry for his seed.

Her words, her desire, send a thrill throughout every nerve cluster in his body. "As my lady commands," he whispers, just before touching his lips to hers.

The kiss is exploration and adoration all rolled into one. There's no sense of being taken, but only of sharing, as though he's giving something to her he has no other way to tender. They could kiss all day and go no further if they were so inclined, if their bodies were not already on the brink of starvation.

In one smooth, practiced move, Lord Ral wraps an arm around her waist, the other arm snaking around her thigh, and sweeps her up, Kara's legs settling around his hips as if always meant to perch there. He carries her over to the lounge where he sets her down gently before following her, laying out on his side, his body flush against hers. Kisses continuing unabated, moans rising from deep within both of their chests, Ral slides a hand from her hip, up her ribcage, blindly finding her breast. Her back arches into his touch as she gasps into his mouth.

Ral tears his mouth away from hers, Kara's gasp having broken the seal. He notices that her perfect breasts are still slightly bruised from Mon-El's manhandling in the chancel, and perhaps from later rendezvous. Ral needs to soothe her swollen breasts, so he sucks the nipple into his mouth, working his tongue around it until the areola puckers and the nipples reach up for his tongue. Kara's back arches, moans of arousal flying from the deepest parts of her. Her hands roam his back, searching for every dip and divot, every line where hard meets harder. Caught in the soft concern in Lord Ral's eyes, she senses that he is different from Mon-El. No doubt Ral can fuck with the best of them, pound her into the mattress, but he's just as likely to make love, and that's what this feels like to her.

Learning that her breasts long for worship, Ral proceeds to do just that. Using his teeth, his tongue, and his breath, he kisses the plump, sensitive flesh, finding the most responsive areas until her hips buck against him.

"Your breasts are perfect," he compliments her, kissing and licking between words. "Your nipples turn the dark pink of the horizon seen from the peaks of Han-Or." Switching to the other breast, Ral begins paying it the same homage. "They should be showered with kisses first thing in the morning upon waking, my beautiful Kara. You deserve nothing less."

The slow and steady draw as he suckles her nipple sends a steady and insistent pulse of electricity to the hungry nub nestled in the seam between her legs, as one of his hands cups the other breast, his thumb and index finder plucking at the hardened bud. Kara imagines herself a stringed instrument, and Ral its musician, composing a new and provocative tune.

"My body is yours to play," she sighs, her mind fogging as if slipping into an erotic trance. He is a lover in no rush to the reach the finish line, but wishes only to baptize her body in pleasure, and Kara is too bewitched to do anything but let him have his way with her.

Alternately, Ral pays equal attention to both breasts, reveling in their taste and the way her breath catches when he suckles her, or how she moans when he plucks at the nipple with his teeth. Her thigh nudges his erection as he lays on his hip beside her, And Ral notes that his besiegement of her breasts has drawn her legs wider apart, her body silently begging him to cradle his hips in hers.

Continuing the adoration of her breasts with his mouth, he glides a hand down the curves of her body and slips a test finger into the slit of her cunt, finding it wetter even than he had dared to hope. Her moan turns to high-pitch keen as he adds a second finger, and unerringly locates the swollen bundle of nerves that detonates her pleasure. Releasing her breast with a sloppy pop, he grins and says, with no small amount of pride, "You're so wet, Sunshine. All this for me?"

"Yes, my lord," she whines, her eyes glazed over with lust.

He smiles, circling his middle finger around her pleading clit but refraining from giving it the pressure it needs. Torturously, his dips his fingertip, just to the top knuckle, into her deep for a bit of her own lubrication before continuing the slick slide around the swollen bud. Her body generates nectar like he's never seen in his life – unexpected that such a motherlode of arousal should come from a Kryptonian, a planet well known for its sexual conservativism.

Abandoning her breasts, he kisses his way down her body, in a reverse of how she kissed her way up his earlier, before sliding off the bed and onto his knees. Wrapping his forearms around her thighs he tugs her pelvis to the edge of the bed. Placing his hands on the backs of her thighs he presses them toward her until she's on her back, her knees drawn up nearly to her chest. "I need to taste you," he says, unable to tear his eyes away from the deep pink of her flesh garden, ready for reaping, "Would you like that?" he inquires, giving her a chance to say no. "I dream of tasting your honey for myself."

"Yes," she nods, frantically as she licks her lips. "Yes, my lord. I want your mouth on me." Though she knows it's untrue, her body tells her it's been ages since a mouth has been on her. Mon-El, on the outside so enthusiastic about eating her pussy, has only performed oral sex on her twice since she entered his mind, her first orgasm in the chancel and again as his friends feasted on her body. Since then, he's treated her cunt as if it's only there for the pounding (not that she would ever complain about how he chooses to exhibit his enthusiasm for her), and not the sumptuous banquet Lord Ral yearns to taste.

In turns, Lord Ral spends an impressive amount of time sucking lovingly on each fold of her labia, taking the time to plump them to sensitivity. Then, thumbs draw back her labia with care, as he enthusiastically licks a wide swath of her wet heat with the flat of his tongue. Sighing with bliss, he allows the salty-sweet flavor to wash over his taste buds, finding her flavor more full-bodied than a finely aged ambrosia made in the deeps of the High Mountains. Studiously avoiding her clit, Ral's tongue dives into every crease of her folds, burning the sounds she makes into his memory, to be cherished in the dark hours.

Reaching her arm between her thighs, Kara grips his hair, those lovely golden curls and tries to direct him where she wants, but to do so in a way so subtle as to not draw his ire. Mon-El would chafe against being told what to do. But rather than punishing her, Lord Ral lifts his head, beard unabashedly thick with her arousal, and says, "You have only to ask, my darling Kara. What is your pleasure?" Spreading across his face, a wicked smile boasts of white and gleaming teeth. "Pleasure is your right. What is your command?"

"My clit," she gasps, her abs raising and falling rapidly as her heart races in her chest, "suck my clit. Please…my lord?"

"Morgon," he corrects. "My name is Morgon and it would please me to hear my name on your lips when you come."

At first, she balks at the notion, but his desires are Master's desires, she reminds herself. "Morgon," Kara pants, trying it on for size.

Ral rewards her by dipping his tongue back into her folds and locating her clit with pinpoint accuracy. Sealing his lips around the bundle of nerves Ral begins to suck, not too hard and not too fast, but rather in a lazy way, as though sampling a refreshing dunberry on a hot day during the season of Malz. Adding another layer of sensation, he hums against the nerves, groaning as he enjoys her rich flavor.

"Sweet Rao!" she exclaims, torn between wanting him to stop (not really) and wanting him to suck harder (yes please!), as the sensation within her rising closer to the breaking point. Kara undulates her hips, looking for the straw that will break the camel's back, but it doesn't quite get there. "Morgon?" she gasps, biting down on her lower lip before more words can slip out.

Giving her a short break to wait for Kara to catch her breath enough to form words, Ral scratches the tender flesh of her inner thighs with his beard, leaving the pale skin there a bright pink from beard-burn. "What is your command?" he inquires at last, offering her the fulfillment of all her desires in one short phrase

"Put your fingers inside of me," she replies, her voice growing in confidence.

"As you wish." Two long fingers slide slowly into her greedy heat, her strong pussy gripping at him with muscles that nearly steal his breath. She will feel exquisite clutching his cock, and when she comes while he's inside of her, should Lure call his soul at that moment, then he shall die a happy man. "Your pussy wants me," he realizes, expressing this private thought aloud as he pumps slowly in and out of her with two fingers. Ready to push her over the edge, he sucks her clit back into his mouth, the rhythm of his plunging fingers not skipping a beat.

"Hmm-hmmm," she agrees, dropping her legs so that her heels rest on his shoulders. Bowing under the strain of a building climax, her back arches, breasts thrust into the air as she struggles for the orgasm she lost before entering the courtyard. Her hips surge against his invasion, seeking greater purchase from his fingers. " _Yes…yes…yes…Morgon…don't stop! So close…._ "

One final draw of suction from his lips and she falls apart, her muscles turning rigid and her breath stopping her chest as she experiences the first orgasm in a while that wasn't dictated to her. "Morgon!" she cries.

The breathless sound of his name on her lips fills him with light and hope, and something bright and dark on the tip of his tongue, of which he dare not speak. An emotion to which he fears giving voice, lest it destroy him when she leaves. He sucks on her clit more, drawing out her pleasure for another moment before letting her come down. He could watch her for hours, the meerblossom blush spreading across her chest to announce her satisfaction to any with eyes that see. But his precious Kara will not have that.

Made hungrier by her orgasm, her inner walls still rippling insistently as though calling out for him, opening a void for him to fill. She tugs him by the hair, the only part of him she can reach until he eagerly scrambles back onto the bed. "Now," she insists, genuinely surprised to hear the authority in her tone. She isn't one to take control during sex, has never felt the desire. "Take me now. I need your cock inside me."

Perfectly happy to obey her every impulse, even at the cost of his own desires, Ral grasps his ready steel in one hand, holding himself above her with the other, and pumps it twice before aligning it with her entrance. With a deep breath, he pushes in slowly, focusing on her face more than the exquisite feel of her heat welcoming him into its scorching embrace. "Mmmmm," he moans, pressing his lips together to contain the rush of euphoria that accompanies their communion. His head spins with elation.

Somehow, Kara had convinced herself that another lover's cock inside her would feel the same, bring the same sensations, but that was a lie she told herself to give her the strength to make this leap. He doesn't feel the same. Morgon isn't the overwhelming onslaught of Mon-El, besieging her with pleasure until she buckles beneath the weight of it. If Mon-El is the general shouting for victory at all costs, then Morgon is the assassin that sneaks up unlooked for and unexpected, triumphing through stealth. No doubt, the end result will be the same, though the methods of execution be almost paradoxical.

He glides into her soaking passage all the way to the hilt, fitting her like a key to a lock, snug but not painful, and so deep he's a part of her. Wonder and awe are written clearly on her face, and it's the kind of expression a person rarely shows the object of their affection until the recipient's back is conveniently turned. It's the kind of emotion men often show in action and deed rather than uncomfortable words or awkward displays that leave them more vulnerable than they like. "Yes!" she nods fervently, as though she's solved a puzzle that's plagued her for far too long.

Seated to the hilt, he holds perfectly still, like a statue of flesh with skin that tremors and muscles that twitch. Unable to tear her gaze from that gorgeous face, from those eyes that draw her in and hold her captive, Kara slides her hand up his hairless chest, smooth like polished marble, clasping it behind his neck and pulling him down. Lifting her head, Kara meets his lips with her own, sipping from him like he's a fine wine at first before diving in to drink more deeply. And in fact, that is how he tastes to her, the tang of wine with the sweet hint of peaches, and she can't get enough.

She moans in that way that seems like she's unaware of the sounds she is emitting, tiny whines of pleasure that he sweeps away with his tongue, swallowing them as though they might sustain him through a coming drought. Her other hand climbs to his neck, the fingers of both hands slipping into the bush of blonde curls at the nape. It's a particularly sensitive spot for him, so her affectionate touch there causes his back to arch and a low growl, more of a purr really, to spill from his throat, like a particularly pleased jaxaar feline in the throes of its mating season. Ral's stretch seems to push him impossibly deeper inside of her. "Gods!" he curses, as the pleasure streaks through him, fighting against his mortal instinct to move, so that he can stay buried within her.

Reveling in the feel of him, of his cock embedded to the root, of his curls beneath her questing fingers just as she'd imagined, his pelvis nestled against hers like it has found its lost-lost puzzle piece. Kara clamps her inner walls around him, just to watch his jaw harden and the muscle there twitch with the strain of holding still. His lips are white around the edges from pressing them together and his breath comes in short, hot bursts, through flaring nostrils. "You feel so good inside me," she whispers, lifting her knees so that her legs are flush with his flanks.

"Gods, you're exquisite," he barely manages, before squeezing his eyes shut and releasing a long, low groan that her pussy answers with a series of soft, spasmodic flutters.

"Morgon!" she gasps, his name a soft prayer. Her fingers fist in his hair, her back arching, knees gripping his ribs, her mouth opening as her eyes roll back. Though small, it's an unexpected orgasm that hits without warning, which makes it all the sweeter. Lord Ral stiffens inside of her, his fists clutching the blanket beneath her until his knuckles turn a bright shade of white to match her gossamer gown.

No matter the discomfort to him, Morgon will remain stationary inside of her through a thousand tiny orgasms, she realizes, until she commands him otherwise. He submits to her will, and that epiphany is more than she knows what to do with, at first. "Oh, Morgon," she sighs, a lump rising in her throat, as her hands slide from the nape of his neck around to cup his face. "Move," she instructs, her eyes boring into his. "I need you to move."

Like a burden lifting, he finds his breath again, filling his lungs as withdraws from her clasping, reluctant heat, until just the tip of him remains inside, unwilling to break complete contact, before sinking slowly back in. And it goes like that, a leisurely stroking of his cock into the welcoming wet of her pussy, again and again, his rhythm varying but only slightly, and never as a rush to finish.

His unhurried strokes go on and on as he makes love to her, a blissful heaven that seems without end, their bodies rocking together in unison, soft sighs and low moans filling the air around them. Skin becomes slick with sweat as twice more he pushes her to a soft fluttering release with nothing more than the measured cadence of his cock pumping into her.

Since her arrival, he's done little more than the obsess over the woman panting beneath him, watching her every move when it was allowed. Even when he couldn't be there in person, he would watch chancel's live feed on the Daxess when Mon-El would have her there. He's seen the extremes to which his bond-brother has pushed his beautiful, loving senya and even knows the reasons why, though he's forbidden to express them. He's seen Mon-El torture her with pleasure one day and then with the lack of it the next. He has no intention of doing the same.

So, he will hold off his own release for hours if it pleases her – make love to her like he has no other. He will push his body to previously unseen limits, depriving himself if necessary, and give her the kind of pleasure that rolls from one release to the next, until the next moonrise if that's what it takes for her to know his love.

But he knows her too well, senses her needs enough to know she won't ask such sacrifices of him. Ral adds a hip twist to his next series of lunges, so that his pubic bone stimulates her clit, pride filling him when her responsive moans rise in pitch. Her lean, shapely legs slip from his flanks and wrap around the backs of his thighs, while her hands explore every inch of him, like a blind person experiencing something new and committing it to memory.

His thrusts shorten but dig deeper into her core, withdrawing only a few inches before sinking back in, and this new cadence builds something frantic inside of her. Small hands roam his body, from his ribs, to his upper back and then slide down to the contracting muscles of his ass. Gripping the rock-hard muscles that drive him, she attempts to pull him closer and Morgon complies the best he can, but it does nothing to quiet the need clamoring inside of her. "I can't get close enough," she pouts, her body striving for the next release, just the right motion away.

Slipping his hand under back, he lifts her to his chest in a sweeping move while still buried deep and sits back on his haunches. Ral's other hand encourages her legs to lock around his waist, while her rear end settles in his lap. And now they're chest to chest, face to face, pelvis to pelvis, close enough to kiss and love and breathe each other's air. "Better?" he enquires breathlessly.

"Yes," she nods, capturing his lips with hers, sweeping her tongue inside the warm cavern of his mouth, unlocking her ankles to plant her feet solidly on the mattress behind him as he continues his short, deep thrusting. So close, it's like they're sharing the same skin, making the creature with two backs. "Make me come again, Morgon," she rasps in a low voice when she tears her mouth from his, riding his cock as he meets her undulating hips with waves of his own. Kara searches his eyes, loving the familiar warmth she sees there. "Make me come…and then come inside me."

Clasping the globes of her ass, Ral holds her steady while he begins pumping into her with more force. Kara wraps her arms around his upper back and drops her head back, getting lost in the excruciating pleasure of their communion. Forgetting about Mon-El or the outside world, and giving in to her instinctual drive toward pleasure, Kara clutches at him, both with her hands and with her cunt, her body working overtime to hold him deep.

She climbs higher and higher towards her peak with each thrust, her own hips joining in the dance again to meet his force. " _Oh…oh…oh yeah…..Morgon_ ," she pants. " _I'm close….I'm so close_." Lost in the feeling of his thick cock rutting into her, Kara doesn't notice the finger circling the rim of her anus until it's pressing its way inside, the muscles gripping at it like welcoming a long lost friend home. The sensation of his cock filling her is heavy, like the beast within her feasts on an unending banquet table without a care for manners or elegance. The finger inside of her anus is different, however, the nerves there sparking a thousand tiny starbursts that send shockwaves throughout her body. " _Oh, Rao_! _Oh…fuck! Yes, yes…Morgon…Morgon!_ " she crescendos as the two opposing sensations work together to send her over the edge, her entire body clenching tight, so unlike the soft landings he's already provided for her.

"You're…magnificent," he grunts, licking at the salty sweat that's gathered on his upper lip. His hips continue pumping into her rippling pussy, his finger jammed tightly into her anus as the tautness of her muscles fades. She melts into him, her body simply taking his thrusts, which continue unabated.

"You now," she slurs, his relentless drive drawing out her pleasure for another few moments.

Pulling his finger out, he grabs her waist, leaning her back until her head and shoulder blades rest on the mattress, her hips still held high, and her hands gripping at the coverlet beneath her. Ral pauses his thrusts long enough to rise to his knees before continuing with a slightly increased tempo.

" _Yeah…yeah…yeah_ ," she mewls with each snap of his pelvis into hers, each slap of skin against skin.

Ral focuses now, head down, absurdly satisfied by the sight of his raging red cock disappearing inside of her, only to emerge wet and hungry for more. Her clit exposed for him, swollen and dark pink, it proves too much to resist and he raises his hand, settling the palm over her mons and begins flicking the bud with his thumb.

Kara's back arches, and if her hands were behind her head, she could easily go into a back bend, but instead they grip and tear at the blanket beside her, seeking some distraction from them the breath-stealing agony of the direct stimulation on her throbbing clitoris.

Ral's breath falters, as his chest seems to seize, his balls tightening and sending tendrils of electricity racing from one nerve cluster to another, until he feels the unstoppable rush that has the pace of his hips speeding and also faltering, losing tempo as he tries to find just the right thrust to set him off. And then a flick of his thumb has her falling apart around him, her pussy grabbing at him again, and Ral spills into her as if it's been a god's age since he's come. "Kara…gods…Kara!" he gasps in awe, his face contorting with release in an expression that one might perceive as pain, if they know no better.

"Morgon!" she sobs, the flushed straining countenance of orgasm achieved, perfectly matching Morgon's.

"Lure give me strength," he prays, his mouth dry from exertion. One hand grips her waist and the other splays on her belly, and he couldn't release her even if he wanted to, he suspects, his muscles locked tight as the electrical surge of his climax courses through him. The hand pressing down in her flat abdominals feels his own pulsing cock just beneath the skin, pumping into her searing heat several more times as he jettisons his load, praying that he can finish before his skin is set aflame.

When he's depleted at last, his eyes snap open seeking contact, and when her eyelids lift in languorous repletion, their awed gaze holds as their pants of exertion slow and normalize, breathing in unison. Taking her with him, unwilling yet to separate his flagging cock from her, Ral lowers to his haunches and then falls forward, his head to her breast, wrapping his arms around her as he curls himself into her lithe body. Kara takes him against her, locking her ankles around his back again, one hand stroking the curve of his spine the way a mother comforts a child, while the other cards gently through his beautiful curls. As the dominant lover in this scenario, after care is her responsibility.

"Don't let go," he begs, his back quivering beneath her touch.

"I won't," she promises, uncertain as to where his request comes from.

Out of necessity and for comfort he finally moves, withdrawing from her and curling them both up on their sides, Lord Ral spooning behind her. Kara snuggles in tight, pulling his hand up to cup her breast, while he perches on his other elbow looking down upon her.

Ral marvels at her beauty, at the flawlessness of her skin, at how the sheen of perspiration he put there makes her glow. "Was that…all right?" he asks, insecure for perhaps the first time in his life, but trying not to show it. Pleasing a partner has never been this important before, the stakes never this high. "I know it's not your usual…preference."

"It was wonderful," she assures him, hearing the concern in his voice. "Besides…isn't that something they teach on Daxam? About accepting variety and drinking deep of life's pleasures?"

"Indeed," he replies, nodding, a sultry, satisfied smile on his face.

"I just didn't know that you were…." She trails off, afraid to say it in case she misread what had happened between them.

"Submissive?" he provides.

"Yeah," she nods, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, chewing on it nervously. Kara's eyes blink wearily, getting harder and harder to keep them open.

"I can go both ways," he explains with a careless shrug, as though the labels are ultimately meaningless. "But I find that…sometimes you have to submit, to get what you truly want."

"Oh," she says, seeing their encounter again from a new perspective. "And did you…get what you truly wanted?"

"Let's just say I got my foot in the door."

Kara giggles, her eyes slipping close. The sun in the sky above, more than twice the size of the sun on Earth, warms her, along with the lean body behind her, Lord Ral's legs tucked up flush behind hers, and his dewy cock nestles against her backside. His hand cups her breast in a comforting way but doesn't play or attempt to arouse. It's the comforting, cuddling gesture of a couple intimate for much longer than they have been, and yet they slip into it so naturally.

"Rest now," he whispers, his breath warm against the shell of her ear.

Following his instruction as if she had been waiting for him to give them, Kara closes her eyes, the darkness swirling and swirling around her. Just before sleep overtakes her, as she's being dragged under it occurs to her that something about her feels different. The hunger inside of her that was awakened in the chancel has receded for the first time since that night. It has clamored inside her, demanding to be fed by any means necessary, and thus far its meals have led only to more and stronger hunger.

It's still there, she knows – can feel it hibernating. But for the moment, it rests within her sated, however temporary.

There's something decadent and primal about waking up beneath the sky without a stitch of clothing on and the sun overhead. Kara stretches languorously, feeling like Eve in the Garden of Eden, part of her wishing she could stay in this paradise forever. Looking up, she shields her still-sleepy eyes from the red sun that dominates so much of the sky, turning to look for Lord Ral.

Tidally locked, Daxam doesn't rotate on an axis like Earth so it's impossible to tell how long she's been asleep or how many hours have passed. It's more like Earth's moon, containing a light side that forever faces the sun, and the dark side, that remains untouched by the sun's rays, only receiving what ambient heat the atmosphere can provide.

It could be the middle of the night, for all she knows. Kara is told that if you live on Daxam long enough, you become attuned to the rhythm of its thirty-two hour daily cycles. Daxam has two moons, by which they mark time. The daily cycle is marked by the complete revolution of the larger, closer moon around the planet. The smaller moon takes a full nine daily cycles to cross the sky from moonrise to moonset, and then disappears behind the plant for another nine days before rising on the horizon again.

Kara's noticed a startling lack of timepieces in the palace, either those worn on the person, or made visible for all to see. She wonders if that's true to Mon-El's memories, or something his mind has conjured to keep him trapped in a timeless world.

Hearing the splash of water, Kara peeks over the low top of the bed's headboard to see Lord Ral wading waist deep in the hot spring, his back to her, splashing steaming water through his blonde hair and then shaking it loose like a dog drying itself from a rainstorm. Her body goes from chilled to hot in a split second, her breath catching in her chest.

Taking the lead with him is fun, and she can easily see herself playing those games from time to time, but that isn't who she is at her core. When it comes to sex, she needs dominating, she needs to feel the strength of her lover transferred from him into her. She purrs when Mon-El sends his beast out to play, Kara wonders if it will be the same with Mor—Lord Ral.

Squeezing her thighs together as a rush of wetness floods between them, she lowers her face, moaning in the bolster pillow against the headboard. Her hunger, given a brief respite, roars to life as images fill her head of naked bodies twisting together, of taking…of being taken, over and over. The more Kara learns of herself, of her needs, the more convinced she is that, despite her feelings for Morgon, Mon-El is her intended mate. Rao made someone for her that would be equally insatiable. But that doesn't mean she isn't going to enjoy Lord Ral as long as she can, since her master has given her leave, and in fact encouraged her, to do so. And since her master has decided to withhold pleasure from her, that fact makes Lord Ral her only allowable source of release. A release that is sorely needed, despite the three climaxes Lord Ral gifted her with earlier.

This secret garden, grown into the bones of a destroyed palace and teaming with tended flora and fauna, everything from creeper vines and shrubs to wildflowers and carefully sculpted topiary, calls to mind a jungle with the caws of birds in the trees and the titter of several squirrel/monkey type creatures – squirkeys – leaping from limb to limb in the trees. One chases another, branch after branch, up and then down, across and over, clearly a mating dance as the larger male earns the privilege of mating the smaller female. Fascinated, Kara watches, her heart racing as it invests in the outcome of the chase, until finally the male is on the female and….

Inspiration strikes, leaving Kara breathless at the possibility. But will he play with her?

Kara now finds herself in a conundrum. She wants to be chased and, more importantly, she wants to be captured, and she knows that Lord Ral will submit to her will. But when one is a submissive, revealing that will can take the fun out of it – and with some masters, the practice of dominant manipulation is grounds for punishment, or worse. She knows that the Mon-El of this place would not take kindly to be being topped from the bottom, but senses for this purpose, the right partner is before her now. She will have to be careful and deliberate, relying on non-verbal cues and Lord Ral's ability to read her, for it to work. And she needs a plan.

Surveilling him as he stands in the water, she observes as his head drops back, his hand moving in front of his body. Kara gasps. He's masturbating; an act that is, if not forbidden on Daxam, harshly discouraged. He must have needed her while she slept and removed himself from her presence to ease his ache, rather than disturb her. He might have sought another partner as well, and it says much that he did not, but for the first time Kara understands the Daxam belief that self-pleasure is selfish. She would have gladly awakened to the sensation of his cock sliding into her, just as she had done with her master this morning, but now she may very well miss another opportunity with him.

She must act before it is too late. Spotting his clothes neatly folded near the edge of pool, inspiration strikes once more. Despite the comfort level with nudity and near-nudity on this planet, clothes are still important as both a sign of respect to others and as a status symbol revealing one's rank. Lord Ral would not like to have his clothes stolen – he would not like that one bit.

Approaching the pile of clothing as quickly as possible, Kara misses the rock in her path that skitters across the old stone tiles when she inadvertently kicks it. Lord Ral, startles like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar and spins around, the water surrounding him slowing his movements and rippling wildly outward with a splash. "Kara?" he chuckles, glad to discover it's only her. "You're awake."

"Yes, my lord," she replies, sliding closer to the pile of clothing.

"Are we back to 'my lord'?" He watches her, confused by her odd body language. Expecting her to join him in the water to soothe aching muscles, instead she steps to the side. "Why don't you join me in the spring?" he asks, reaching out to offer her a hand. "Its source was buried so deep beneath the ground that only the Kryptonian bombs were able to unearth it."

Kara shakes her head to decline his offer, having quite another idea in mind as she bends over and scoops up his clothes, and his boots for good measure. Biting her lower lip, she tries to contain the smile that rises up in her, but it's no use.

Ral is suddenly intrigued and concerned by this strange move of hers, as she bundles his meticulously folded clothes and holds them close to her chest and begins slowly backing away. He needs those clothes to get back into the palace, not the least of which is the ring hidden in his boot that provides him full access to everything in the palace but the King's quarters. "Why are you taking my clothes?" he questions, stepping forward in the water.

Kara stops moving, but then stifles a giggle, tucking her face coyly into the bundle in her arms, only her blue eyes, sparkling with mischief, visible to him.

"A game then?" he concludes.

She nods, and steps slowly backward, first once and then again.

She wishes to be chased down, a game of prey and predator. It is a game well known amongst royal courtiers, who are often seen playing it to quite good effect in the garden maze on the north side of the palace. Though it's usually played in groups of six or more, runners setting upon volunteer captives and chasing down random partners. It is a game for the fit and the ravenous. Her entire body language screams that she's the submissive once more, far different from the sultry incarnation of Lure herself, who peeled off her gown and dropped to her knees in front of him, taking charge where he had been on uncertain shores. Now she is requesting a role change and he is happy to comply if that is her will. He is well trained in the art of the switch.

"Then…here are the rules," he lowers his voice slightly to project the authority he knows will arouse her. "First…put the clothes down on the bed, you won't be needing them." She obeys without hesitation, now standing a few feet away from him with her hands together in front of her body, hiding herself from him, her head bowed slightly. "When I say 'go', you will run and I will count to ten. When I've reached ten, I will chase you down…hunt you like prey." Even from this distance, he can see her body shiver at his words. "You will not hide," he continues. "You will only run. And when I catch you, you are mine." Ral smiles, which then turns to a hungry leer when an idea occurs to him. "In any way I choose, do you understand?"

Kara, butterflies soaring in her stomach, and dampness pooling between her thighs, nods and answers, "Yes, my lord."

"You wish to be hunted," he decrees, "then prepare to be taken like an animal." He can see the smile she tries to hide.

"Yes, my lord." Thrilled to her core, she breathlessly awaits his instruction.

"Go," he commands.

Heart already beating apace, she spins around and runs for exit, looking for an avenue she hasn't yet taken. Kara turns down the first corridor on the left that she comes to, running several yards as fast as she can, barely noticing the teal colored blooms gracing the archway for the room she enters. It's really more of a hole in a broken brick wall than it is archway, because she must squeeze carefully through it to get in. On the other side of the room, an oval opening that must have been a window long ago, leads to another portion of the garden and she makes for it without hesitation, hoping to put some distance between her and Lord Ral. It wouldn't be any fun, if it ended too soon.

She tries not to fantasize about how it will happen when he catches her, but she hopes it's rough and she knows exactly how to ensure that it will be. Kara plans to make it as difficult as possible for him. She is prey and prey doesn't go down easy. She hears his voice call out for her, letting her know that her grace period is up and now he's on the hunt.

In many of the garden rooms, the rough stone floors are long gone, the ground now covered with thick ginger colored grass that looks nearly as soft as belling fur. Green isn't terribly abundant on this planet as it is on Earth, due to a lack of chlorophyll, but there are some green trees and blooms that catch her attention. But far more abundant are dark-hued colors like indigo and maroon and mustard yellow. In another room, she finds another bed. It's a giant ball made of some sort of woven wood, like wicker, and inside is a mattress and throw pillows. The wicker has been taken over by silver creepers that sparkle in a way that both intrigues her and takes her breath away. It's a discreet little hideaway that she might like to use someday.

But not today. Prey isn't taken in discreet hideaways, they are taken in the open, under the red sky, held down by their hunter. Quickly, she moves on to the next room, hearing Lord Ral's taunting whistle come from a completely different direction, causing her to smile. She has no desire to be caught near a discreet hideaway.

Twice, she's forced to backtrack when his voice sounds too near and she must put some distance between them. Unbidden, Kara laughs, her heart racing.

"I heard that!" he calls.

Her laughter gives away her position, but it doesn't bother her because the thought of making the challenge more difficult arouses her. She hears him around a corner, and Kara flattens herself in the crevice where two walls meet until he passes. When he's no more than a few yards ahead, his back to her, she risks immediate capture by sneaking across the corridor into the room whence he had just departed. Leaning against the wall, she tries to catch her breath.

Her mistake was in thinking they were headed in opposite directions when in fact Lord Ral had doubled back, which put him on a direct course for intercept. At precisely the same time they turn corners, catching sight of each other on opposite ends of a long hallway. Typical to prey behavior, Kara stands stock for a second, like a deer caught in headlight, before she's finally able to spur her body to action. Lord Ral is already bearing down upon her when she's able to force her legs and feet to run.

To her credit, she manages to stay ahead of him for almost a full minute, though never out of his sight, no matter how quickly she takes a turn, she's never able to shake him. But in the end, his legs are longer and eat up more ground, and he knows the garden far better than she does enabling him to predict where her moves will lead her and what obstacles she might face in each section of the former palace. And perhaps he…herds her to some extent, leading her to a large garden area that might have once been a council chamber of some kind. And it's perfect, like a jungle.

Above their heads, cane-like wood has been woven to form a grid that spans from one wall to the next, and from the grid hangs blooming vines, sprouting flowers of bright orange, their wide petals spanning nearly six inches from tip to tip. But what causes her to stumble and lose her lead is that the center of each flower, the stringy stamens and pistils phosphoresce a bright, almost white, green.

So awed by what she sees, Kara almost doesn't feel it when he tackles her, spinning her around before taking her to the ground, and she almost forgets to fight. But then he's rolling with her in the thick ginger colored grass and she comes to her senses, adrenaline racing through her veins. Rolling her safely onto her stomach, his own momentum keeps him moving until he lands on his back, not where he wants to be.

But his over rotation gives her just the opening she needs to scramble away from him, dragging herself forward on her forearms, like a soldier crawling beneath a tripwire. Realizing that she's attempting an escape, refusing to gracefully accept her defeat, Ral grabs for her ankle and pulls, but she kicks back at him, gaining temporary freedom.

Her game now revealed, Ral growls deep in chest and rolls over, leveraging himself to his hands and knees. He'd had to be careful taking her down, ensuring both that she remain uninjured and that his rock-hard cock, made hungrier by their game, didn't end up on the wrong side of the tackle. She wants it rough her game reveals, wants to fight his advances and so he will provide for her needs.

This time, when he grabs for her, he clasps both ankles and tugs her back with all his might, dragging her body back toward him. " _Grrrrhhhh_!" Her fingers dig in the ginger grass for purchase as she fights him and Ral is pleased to see that her efforts have little effect on the force he employs.

" _Arrrgghhh_!" Kara flails her ankles, but just as she hoped, his brutal grip is too strong to defeat. There are no words, only grunts and growls from both of them as she fights him, and he counters each move with a stronger one of his own, until she's flat on the grass on her belly, arms splayed out, Lord Ral covering her prone body with his while his hands hold her arms down at the wrist until she settles.

When she does, he releases her arms and spreads her legs farther apart with his knees. Gripping her hair tight enough to discourage further resistance, Morgon turns her head to the side, while his other hand dives between her legs.

"Why do you run?" he rasps, tauntingly. "Your cunt is so thick with juices it's practically running down your legs."

Next, without teasing or tormenting, she feels his cock shoving into her pussy, filling the hungry void at her center until his belly smacks against her ass. Her entire body stiffens at the invasion, her face forced into the ground. Unlike their first time, this is no slow lovemaking, this is raw need, met and answered. He doesn't give her passage time to adjust to his presence but simply retreats and plunges back into her heat. "You like that?" he growls, retreating and then diving mercilessly back in. "To be hunted down and taken like a wild thing in the grass?" To make the experience more authentic for her, Ral bites down on the fleshy curve where her neck meets her shoulder, like a garrat in season marking his mare.

"Yes!" she cries in response, her fingers digging into the soft grass, her entire body jerking forward with each of his thrusts, her pussy meeting each of his plunges with a flood of arousal. " _Yes, my lord. Rao, yes! Don't stop_!"

He climbs off her of her, grabbing her hips and yanking her until she's on her knees, her ass in the air and forearms on the ground. Plunging in again, he dives deeper this time, and she cries each time his sack slaps against her clit. " _Fuck, yes! Oh, oh, oh…yes! Harder, my lord. Harder!"_

He complies, ramming into her, his hips smacking against her already bruised ass a few more times. "You agreed," he pants heavily, "that when I caught you, I could take you…however I wanted…." For added emphasis, and to demonstrate his mastery of her, Ral delivers a stinging blow to her ass.

Kara jerks in response to his spank, "Yes, my lord. However you want."

He withdraws from her completely, replacing his perfect cock with less than ideal fingers, which dip into her cunt, rooting around as though searching for something, before withdrawing as well and sliding into the crease of her ass. Pinching one cheek with his hand, he slathers her tight rim with her own arousal, and it only takes Kara a few seconds to work out what comes next when Lord Ral slides his lubricated index finger into her anus, causing her back to arch. Luckily for Kara, during her morning ablutions Brana had oiled her rim as a part of rubbing down the rest of her body, which still provides some amount of suppleness there.

"Have you taken your master in the ass yet?" he interrogates, his voice rough, but she knows he's just playing her game.

"No, my lord," she pants, offering herself up to him. Kara's heard about anal sex and even read about it, learned that it can be painful for the recipient, but pain now is not a deterrent for her; it's part of the draw. Besides…she made a deal with Lord Ral, and a deal is a deal.

"Have you been using the training hook as he commands?" he interrogates. In fact, moving his finger slowly in and out of her, Ral's certain that her tight recess is still lubricated from the gel typically used on the ball before it's pressed into place.

So that's what the hook is for! "Yes, my lord!" she answers. "Every day, but he told me to come to you without."

"Did he now?" Ral smirks, massaging one of her cheeks with his hand while finger-fucking her ass with the other. "Your master knows me well." Removing his finger, he places the head of his cock at the puckered hole, pushing at the opening, testing its willingness to give way. "Normally I like to do this with a good deal of belling oil, but you're just so wet for it, sunshine, aren't you?"

"Mmm-hmmm," she confirms with a whine of encouragement.

"And this shouldn't be any worse than anything else you've let him do to you," Ral assures her before chuckling, "…and then begged for more. You'll love the pain, won't you?"

"Ohhhhh, yes," she groans, as the head of his cock presses in, widening the hole. Unlike her pussy, which best plays the whore by surrendering easily to the cocks of her lovers, her tight rim prefers to play hard to get. On instinct, Kara spreads her knees a little wider, and places her forehead on the ground.

"Relax, baby," he croons, massaging her ass cheeks with strong thumbs. "Just relax, and I'll do the rest…and I promise, you'll beg me for more. Deep breath for me now, baby."

There's something so familiar, so soothing about his direction and how he delivers it, she thinks. Following his instructions, she takes a deep breath, which is immediately expressed in low, groan from the bottom of her gut that turns into a howl of sorts when he crams the thick head of his cock past her tight rim, popping in much like the ball goes in when Brana's dressing her.

Getting past the rim was the hard part, but now her channel practically wants to suck the whole of his shaft right inside. He forces himself to take her inch by tantalizing inch, teasing her along the way. Gods! She is so eager for him.

" _Mmmmmm_ ," she purses her lips, sweat rolling down her arching back as he teases her with his thickness. "Just do it," she bursts, ready for the suspense of it to end. "Just give it to me." The thousand pinpricks of starbursts his cock ignites in her ass turns to millions, and Kara wants to push back against him, to take him deep.

"You want more?" he grimaces, nearly swamped by the pleasure of her tight, hungry hole. Ral wants only to drive in until the base of his dick is encircled by that taut ring, but he resists the tug of her channel trying to suck him right in, stronger than her dutiful mouth. He spanks her ass and reaches up to thread his fingers under her collar.

" _Mmmmm_ ," she rewards him, then moans, "Don't tease me, my lord. Give me more of that big dick." It's impossible to explain how he's there in her ass, but she feels him everywhere, in the pulsing of her cunt, the tingling of her nipples, the sensations spreading throughout her body, traveling up her spine and all the way down to her fingers and toes.

Taking her at her word, Ral grips her hip and her collar, driving deep with a frenzied grunt, all the way in until she screams a mixture of pain and pleasure. On the third thrust, he drives so hard the momentum sends them both to the ground until his body is covering hers. Taller than Kara, the back of her head butts back against his chest and she grips his forearms for leverage. Tucking her chin on the ground, she rides the storm as Ral pounds into her.

" _Yeah…yeah…yeah_ ," she whines which each thrust, pleasure so acute she's afraid it might stop. " _Don't stop…don't stop fucking me_." He's not even in her pussy, and yet she's on the verge of falling over the precipice – arousal born from pure vulnerability. Kara relishes the sensation of Lord Ral's pelvis pinning her to the ground, of his cock ramming her and filling her up, and she understands why a woman would want to be with two men at once, to feel so full that there's not a millimeter of empty space left inside of her. To be utterly taken.

Kara pulls one leg from beneath him, bringing her knee out to give him more room to rut into her. " _Oh yeah_ ," she pleads, as he manages to get deeper.

"So fucking tight. Remember?" he growls this time, leaning down to her ear. "When I said I wanted to plunder your rim."

"Yeah," Kara moans, gripping at his hard flesh under her fingers. Beneath her body, she can feel every blade of soft, mink-like grass against her naked skin as he pounds her into it. Lifting her head, she tilts it backward, bowing her neck as she purrs. It feels so good like this. So good.

"It's better than I dreamed," he grinds out, lifting one hand he grabs her chin and bends down to cover her mouth with his, tongues sweeping sloppily together.

"Yeah?" she cries against his mouth.

"What do you want, baby?" he asks, nailing her with another well-timed thrust.

"To come, my lord. Please make me come."

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes," she begs, her voice trembling with the power of his thrusts. "Oh, please!"

Scrambling to his knees, he brings her with him, manhandling her to all fours, her legs spread wide as he returns to his staccato thrusts. Gasping as he steals her breath, she bends her head down, looking beneath their bodies, her hair falling like a lustrous curtain in front of her.

"Yeah," he groans, biting his lip as he pounds Kara's conquered hole, his hands ranging up her rib cage, around her back and even cupping her breasts. "Gods, you're perfect." Sliding his hand around her hip, Ral finds her soaking wet pussy and dips his fingers into her insatiable hunger, doing his best to match the plunge of his fingers to that of his cock.

She could die it feels so good, but what she does instead is give herself over to it. Throwing back her head, Kara revels in the pleasure of his cock pistoning into her, of his fingers in her cunt, her dangling breasts swaying back and forth with each smack of his pelvis against her ass.

Tempting him with her stunning beauty, Ral fists his hand in her hair and tugs back on the tresses, until her neck is flexed backward, her jaw dropping open in a long, low groan. "Yeeeeessssss…." She sighs, a tiny grunt escaping with every thrust of his cock. With a few flicks of her clit she's falling apart, requiring his assistance to stay aloft as her upper body drops to the ground.

Ral's hips speed as he rushes to meet her finish with his, his climax rising in him as though his body has forgotten all of its training. Kara mumbles unintelligible words, encouraging him to push forward and find his release. Skin slaps against skin, Ral gripping her collar and her hip with a force he knows will leave beautiful new purple marks on her already colorful skin tomorrow.

"Come inside me," she reminds him, as if it is possible that he might have forgotten. " _Come inside me…come inside me…come inside me…._ " It's her chant, he concludes, a sing-song melody – a prayer – that helps her hang onto consciousness as she waits for her partner to unload. It's all he needs.

With a gush, Lord Ral spills himself inside of her and she stops breathing as her backside is flooded with his seed. Lord Ral drops down to all fours, his body covering hers, like a stallion covering a mare, as he jerks his hips again. Kara grabs one of his hands and lifts it to her breast, encouraging him to squeeze with considerable force. On his next thrust, he complies, his belly smacking into her ass, the plump flesh rippling beneath the violence of the contact. His final expulsion of hot cum squeezes from her another small but satisfying orgasm.

"My lord!" she cries, as he collapses on top of her, still buried deep.

A moment later, needing to catch his breath, Ral slips out of her, and rolls over onto his back, casually using one hand to grasp one of her ass cheeks. "Exultant," he breathes.

"Wow," she echoes breathlessly, face still buried in the grass, quite unable to move at the moment. Lifting her head, Kara turns to face him, her blue eyes meeting his cloudy green ones.

After a moment, he rolls over onto his belly, planting his face near her bottom which he begins to kiss and caress, soothing the bruised skin and muscles with his soft lips and tender touch. Kara giggles in response, sounding like the teasing minx who sent him on a chase through the old palace gardens. His lips and tongue work wonders on the tender skin as his hands wander lovingly up and down her back and thighs, and even her flanks.

Finally, she tugs him into her arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him, seeking the warmth of his body. Tilting her head up, she pulls him down for a long, wet kiss that goes on and on, his hands stroking down her back.

"I should probably be getting back soon," she announces, though there's no heat that suggest she'll be following her own instructions. "How long have I been here anyway? Do you know?"

"About four hours," he answers, a much shorter period somehow than she expected. "You slept for about two. Deeply, I might add. I must have exhausted you."

"You wish," she snarks, spanking his bottom. He brushes his lips against her forehead with a chuckle. Her mood sobers, the smile slipping from her face. "I wish we could stay here forever," she mumbles.

"You would miss him too much," Ral points out, bringing her closer to her his body. "Don't give up on him," Ral begs, "Please."

"I don't understand how it is between you. I mean…I get the love…I get that…but what aren't you telling me? Why aren't you jealous that he claims me? Why isn't he jealous that I'm here with you now? It's all so….."

"Daxamite?" he offers.

"I suppose," Kara sighs. "The problem is…I'm not reaching him. He's just getting farther and farther away. And I'm not sure this won't push him over some edge." She rolls onto her back, frustrated by the conversation and her ineffectual attempts to bring Mon-El back round to her. "I just feel like I'm missing something."

Ral swallows, guiltily covering his eyes with his hand. "You aren't missing something, my love. You're missing quite a few somethings."

"What?" she pleads, turning to face him. "What is it? Just tell me so that I can figure out what I need to do to help him? Please?"

Ral sits up, leaning back on his hands, and looks Kara straight in the eyes. "Maybe it's time I showed you…."

TBC


	17. Chapter 17

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 17/?

"What does that mean? 'Maybe it's time I showed you?'"

"He's had ample time to show you…clearly, he isn't going to do it," Ral shrugs, speaking more to himself than her, he grabs her arms and pulls her back to the courtyard garden, so they can dress. Perhaps he's going to show her some books, or archive materials that can help her understand Mon-El's motives better.

Ral dons his clothes like he's backstage at a Broadway play and there's only moments to spare before his next cue. Somehow it takes her longer to resituate her gossamer gown, even though it has a much lower degree of difficulty. No sooner does she finish fastening the silver clasp, he takes her hand and….

They are no longer in the secret garden.

Kara spins around frantically, disoriented and trying to get her bearings. "How did we…? What did you…? I don't understand…."

"You know where we are," he says, watching her carefully as she absorbs what's happened. He hasn't taken her anywhere special, just to an empty room in the palace so that she can see what he can do. When he speaks of their presence he speaks of some place far more esoteric.

Kara spins back towards him and points to her chest. " _I_ know where we are…how do _you_ know where we are?"

"This place is a part of me, as I am a part of it," Ral replies, cryptically, holding out his hand. "No harm will come to you, Kara. I swear it. Trust me?"

"Where are you…taking me?" she asks, not quite sure that's the correct phrasing. "Showing me?"

"Things he doesn't want you to see," he answers, his hand still offered to her. "Things he fears will change how you feel about him. I'm betting they won't," Ral says, his eyes turning hopeful. "I'm betting my life on it."

"But you're not…." She says and then trails off. Does he know he's dead? That there's no more life to bet on? Kara bites on her lip, worrying it between her teeth as she considers what to say.

"Yes," he answers, reading her mind. "I'm aware that I'm only real in this place."

"I'm sorry," she croaks, a lump rising in her throat that prevents her from swallowing and brings tears to her eyes.

"I know," he says, gently. "Don't cry, Kara," he soothes, cupping her face in his hands. "It's all going to be all right. All we have to do is get through to him."

"I don't know how!" Kara's tears spill over again and she paces the room hoping the movement will somehow inspire her actions, but nothing comes to mind. "It's always been so…fiery, between us. The draw is…inescapable and has been from the start."

"I'm sensing a 'but'," he interjects.

" _But_ …this time there's something missing."

"It's going to be all right," Ral promises. "I can't show you what's missing, only you can figure that out. All I can do it show you some of the things he's worked so hard to hide from you. We'll have to go deep," he warns. "He's buried them to keep you from stumbling upon them accidentally while you're here."

"Is that really going to help?" she wonders, shrugging her shoulders, uncertain about the potential of Ral's plan.

"I don't think it can hurt," he says, holding out his hand again. "It's the best I can offer for now."

Kara hesitates, but only for a moment, before placing her hand in his. Immediately there's a feeling a being wedged into some place she doesn't belong, like she's a square peg and Mon-El's memory banks are a series of round holes.

As if the world de-pixelates and then re-forms right before her eyes, her environment changes around her, including the clothes she wears. Rather than the gossamer gown she wore to the secret garden, Kara is back in the white top and slacks her mind conjured for her arrival so long ago now. Her ownership collar and cuffs, however, are still firmly in place and she finds that strangely comforting. On her feet are the white ballet-type slippers that match her travel outfit.

"Thanks," she says, wriggling her toes.

"I thought you might find this more comfortable," he explains, shrugging with one shoulder in s self-deprecating manner. "And that it might help me to stay focused. We're going to need every ounce of focus we can muster," he adds, his brow crinkling with concern.

"Where are we?" she asks, looking around. It's not a large room, but one with very little in the way of distractions. On each side of the room there is a small desk, facing each other as though squared off for a battle of some kind.

"Our schoolroom," he supplies. Two young boys fade into the scene, each filling a desk, one with a recognizable mop of curly blonde hair, the other a darker shade, which would one day grow to a rich chestnut brown. Kara's first instinct is to hide, her eyes darting about for something to get behind, or perhaps to climb under.

"They can't see you," Ral says, his hand reaching out to call her to his side. "They're only shadows, nothing more."

"Oh," she answers, "well that's good…I guess. It's Mon-El," she sighs, walking all around him. He's slightly younger than the version she met upon her arrival…or inception into his mind. Kara drops down to her haunches to examine his face, trying to see the grown man in the features of a boy. Kara is taken aback by what she sees on his face; eyebrows drawn together, grey eyes laser-focused, mouth set in a thin, white line, lips pressed tightly together. Her smile at the sight of his younger self, melts slowly from her face.

"He's so…serious," she concludes, surprise evident in her voice. She doesn't see even a hint of her Mon-El in the boy sitting at the desk.

"I was the troublemaker," Ral confesses contritely, with the wisdom of one who now sees the errors of his ways. "Dragging him from one risky situation to another. I got him into more trouble than I care to admit now. And he always followed because…well…because he's loyal to a fault."

A man storms into the room, and though it's unnecessary, Kara scrambles out of the way because his presence, even as a shadow, demands it. He slams something down, a tablet device, onto the desk in front of Mon-El, who shrinks away from the sudden assault.

"You think this is acceptable?" the man roars. Kara startles and steps back. It's hard to discern what sends her reeling more; his aged resemblance to the man she loves, or the cold, dark look in his eyes, like peering into a void of deep space without stars. "What kind of idiot are you? I understood these concepts when I was years younger than you!"

"I'm sorry, Father." Mon-El stiffens and flinches away from his father but does not cry. Kara senses that, if he could, he would get out of the chair to get further away from the man. Mon-El grips the desk's table in both hands, and – she doesn't know how she knows – she just does, that he's keeping himself from using his hands to block the blows certain to come.

And when they do, she steps forward to defend young Mon-El from his father, only to be held back by Ral's strong hands on her arms. "Let me go," she demands, her teeth and fists clenched tightly together.

With a sigh of resignation, Ral complies, releasing her from his hold as if spilling her forward to attack the man striking the boyhood version of a man they both love. Her fists, clenched and ready to deliver their sting to guilty flesh, find nothing but air as she passes right through the imposing figure of Daxam's king. Realizing her predicament, and her inability to rescue the little boy now finding himself on the wrong end of his father's fists, she presses her palms to her streaming eyes and screams out her frustrations.

"I told you," Ral reminds her, desperate to ease her pain, and yet relieved to see it. "They're just shadows. This all happened long ago. You can't change what's past. Believe me…no one wishes you could more than I."

Young Mon-El drops to the ground and rolls into a protective ball, hands protecting his head, as his father switches from fists to feet. He takes the blows silently, with only a few grunts to indicate the pain he must be feeling. If she can't protect him, then she wants to comfort him, but she can do neither, only watch…and ache.

And rage.

"It was always like this," Ral explains. "If the king wasn't hitting him, then he was ignoring him completely. For the hitting…he would always find a reason, and the ignoring…? He'd find a reason for that too. And somehow…he found a way to convince Mon-El that the ignoring was worse."

Ral tenders his hand, offering to assist Kara to her feet and she accepts it, gratefully. "I've never met anyone stronger than him. He never showed the king how much it hurt," Ral continues. "Never begged him to stop. Never cried mercy. He always waited until we were alone to cry."

It takes her breath away…the phrasing…the words Mon-El still actively tries to coax from her.

"A few years ago, it stopped finally. I suppose King Vir became concerned that Mon-El might one day snap and fight back. Or perhaps he derived more pleasure in the psychological games he began to play. His favorite game being to offer him something, only to take it away once it's within grasp."

"That's…awful."

"Yes, it is," Ral nods. "Mon-El stopped playing recently. Or at least stopped expecting a result. He dances to the tune but expects nothing for his efforts. It's easier that way. I tell you this to offer you some insight into why he behaves the way he does. The more he wants something, the harder he tries to push it away and when he looks at you, he sees something he wants. Which means you're something the king can take from him."

Kara shakes her head fervently, sick to her stomach at the thought of Daxam's king using her love for Mon-El against him. "No," she insists. "I won't let that happen. Besides…the king is dead. Long dead."

"Let's just say…the king has a long reach. Long enough to reach out from beyond the grave" Ral shakes his head sadly. "In his mind, Mon-El hasn't been able to let go of him – of all the things the king did to him. Though I hope you're right about not allowing the king to win. You have no idea how much I hope you're right. I'm only telling you this…showing you this, so you can understand the stakes of the game. You think you're fighting for his mind, but you're not," Ral insists. "You're fighting for his soul."

"I've seen enough of this," she decides, belying her words by being unable to tear her eyes away from the little boy on the floor.

"Good," he replies, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Because so have I."

Her vision de-pixelates again, reforming into another room altogether; this time it's the throne room where Kara witnesses one of the king's cruel games coming to fruition. Mon-El, at least a decade younger than his true age, his face fresh and painfully hopeful, twists in carefully banked rage. King Vir is trying to turn Mon-El cruel, like he is, and she can see the prince fighting it tooth and nail, holding back his anger – the violence he so clearly wants to unleash. Kara silently cheers him on, clenching her own fists in solidarity.

"Did he ever do it?" she wonders. "Did he ever snap?"

"Eventually. But to truly understand…you need to see what came before."

Hours pass seemingly, each journey taking them to another beating, another time and place, another mind game, until finally Kara can tolerate no more. "I can't do this," she shouts, covering her eyes with her hands. "I can't watch him be treated this way anymore. What is the purpose of this, Morgon? Why show me these horrors over and over."

"To give you a glimpse of what he's going through. Many of these memories are the ones he relives every day."

"Every day?" she asks, bewildered.

"The moments he spends with you – the hours – those are his reprieve," Ral clarifies. "So...when he's with you…don't ever doubt that he's where he wants to be. No matter what he says or how he behaves."

Kara recalls the way Mon-El looked at her before he left his chambers this morning. "He's bored with me," she admits. "I look into his eyes and I see…coldness."

"Boredom is his default position, sunshine," Ral explains, his voice soothing. "It's a trick he learned early on, to keep people…the king, mostly, from taking what was his. Trust me when I tell you, my darling Kara…he could never be bored with you. I know him better than anyone."

"He wants me to go," Kara points out.

"Oh, yes," Lord Ral agrees. "Of that you can have no doubt. But it is because of love, and fear. You make him vulnerable, just as I do…did."

"I think I see now…understand…he doesn't want to be like his father."

"What his father made him," Lord Ral corrects.

"But I can handle it," she insists.

"I believe you can."

"There's something missing here." Kara wrings her hands, pacing the floor and shaking her head. "I've caught glimpses of it, brief moments here and there."

"What is it, do you think?" Ral wonders, watching her pace the floor in front of him.

"Courage," she answers. "The part of him that opened up to me, emotionally – that showed me how much he cared. I know it's there somewhere, if only I could reach it."

"You'll figure it out," Ral encourages, seemingly unconcerned by other possible outcomes. "You always do."

"He was afraid I wouldn't want him after he showed me how he really was. But I've seen it now, and it changes nothing. I've seen his needs, his desires, Morgon…but I've also seen the boundaries he puts on them. He's drawn lines, even though he doesn't want me to know about them."

"Kara," Lord Ral sighs. "I'm glad to hear that you're so accepting of the man he's been while he's with you, but there's only a speck of truth in what he's shown you. It's just the misdirection he employs to both push you away and keep you from looking at what he really doesn't want you to see. That's why I brought you here," he confesses. "His plan included hiding everything there was to see—what he thinks is the worst of him—and I'm not just talking about how he enjoys your sweet submission in his bed. That was the easy part. It's so much more, my darling."

"Then why have you been showing me all of this? What have we been doing here? Wasting time?"

The charming smile slips from his face and for the first time Kara sees the fear in his eyes, and it is contagious. "I've been working my way up to it," he answers.

Something in Kara's gut, like a stone she didn't know was there, turns over and she fights the urge to grip her belly.

"And because…once we access those memories…the ones he keeps so fresh…."

"He'll know we're there," she deduces.

"Precisely," he nods, worriedly, his eyebrows furrowing. "And once we start, there'll be no turning back – that's important to know – because once he catches wind of our presence he'll lock it all down, Kara. I know him. We'll only get one shot at this and if we miss it…it's gone forever. You may have noticed there's a lot of moving parts in this twisted, tortured mind of his—"

"I prefer the adjectives 'bright and beautiful'," she corrects, her eyebrows rising sternly. Kara doesn't like the idea of an avatar of Mon-El's own making disparaging him. "Like his heart," she finishes.

A beaming smile splits Ral's face, incongruous to the pressure weighing down on them both, but still…contagious. "Whatever you say," he allows, working hard to wrangle the smile from his face and return to the serious atmosphere of a moment ago. Try as he may to contain the grin, he can't control the blush that stains his cheeks rises to his hair line. "We may have some time before he notices, but there's no way to be sure how much. Depends on what he's doing at the moment. A lot will depend on timing."

"What will happen when he does notice?"

"Can't be sure," Ral replies with a shrug. "Lock me in a box?" he chuckles uncomfortably, his uneasiness revealing that it is indeed a metaphoric possibility.

"Turn his mind into a maze I can't navigate," she suggests, recalling his earlier threat from the chancel.

"When he does catch up to us…it will be up to you to talk him down. He listens to me less and less these days. You can't appeal to his heart, Kara, not about this. You'll have to appeal to this," he says, pointing his head. "Do you think you can do that?"

"I-I think so," Kara replies, hoping the anxiety welling inside of her remains unseen by her astute lover. "I hope so," she mumbles under her breath.

"Good," he nods, "because if he puts me in a box I'm fairly certain it will be the last either of you will ever see of me again."

There's something about that thought that chills her down to the bone. Wringing her hands together, she paces the floor a few feet in front of him, hoping to keep the sense of despair from spreading to her bones. Kara throws herself at him, capturing his lips with hers, until they're bodies meld together from mouth to knees, feasting from each other as though it's a last meal.

"I won't let that happen," she breathes heavily when they pull apart.

Ral nods, drawing in as much air as he can manage before finally speaking, unable to peel his hands from her back. "We'll have to leapfrog through memories as we go. It's the best way, I think, to remain undetected for as long as possible." Ral closes his eyes and bows his head slightly, turning his head as though trying to make out the words of whisper from across the room.

"I understand," she replies. Not one to tarry once her decision is made, Kara grows more anxious as the minutes pass. She can practically hear a clock ticking in her mind, a sound she misses, since Daxam is notably short on timepieces. "Are we waiting for something?" she asks finally.

"A distraction," he replies. And then, as if his wish was granted just then, he swallows deeply and leans his forehead against hers. "Sure you don't want to back out?" he asks, giving her one last opportunity to change her mind.

"Not a chance," she insists.

"Good girl," he sighs, a happy sound in his throat, before they de-pixilate.

It's impossible to tell if she's the one de-pixilating, or it's her surroundings. It feels like it's her, stomach flipping like she's hurtling down a too-snug water slide, and when the world reforms around her, it's like hitting the pool at the bottom, skipping along the surface of the memory for a second before finally sinking into it.

Feeling once more like she's been wedged in someplace she doesn't belong, it takes a moment to gain her bearings when the world reforms for her eyes. It doesn't help that the ground shakes beneath her feet and the room around her trembles as if moments away from complete collapse. Kara can't explain it, but she senses that they're underground somehow. Perhaps because the floor at her feet is flagstone, like a strong foundation, rather than the red-gold tiles of the rest of the palace.

A cry of pain has her spinning around, coming face to face with a nightmarish vision. They're in the corner of a prison cell, Morgon and Kara, clinging tightly to each other's hands, watching as Mon-El stands over a Ral who lays sprawled, broken, at his bond brother's feet, arms and legs secured in irons.

"Welcome," Morgon intones beside her, his face a grimace of remembered pain, "to the day Daxam died."

"Oh, no!" Kara cries, moving to render aide to the injured ragdoll on the ground, only to be pulled back by Morgon, who pulls her into his arms. "No, no, no!"

"There's nothing to be done," Morgon reminds her again, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Ral's legs are broken, misshapen things, and his fingers aren't in better shape. Dried blood cakes his cheeks, dark black sockets where his beautiful, warm green eyes once were.

"No, no, no…what he did he do?" Shadow-Mon-El, unaware of their presence, cries as drops to his knees and reaches down to touch his brother's face. "What did he do?"

"Extracted a price," Ral answers, his voice hoarse from what must have been hours, if not days, of screaming. "A price that no longer matters, it seems." Kara can hear screams of terror and pain filtering down from up the stairs. It so close in here, so claustrophobic, a part of her wants to run, to find open air and escape this place. The acrid stench of smoke and…burning flesh, fills her nostrils and she must fight to keep from gagging.

"He only did this because of me," Mon-El chokes. "Because I wouldn't give him what he wanted." Deeply affected by both the sight of Ral and Mon-El's obvious emotional pain, Kara grasps for her throat, as if she can dig out the stone that's taken residence there. "What…what did he want?" she asks, turning her head to look up at Ral, who can't seem to focus on the scene before him. Instead, he focuses his gaze on stairwell.

Returning to this place is gut-wrenching, as he's certain the entirety of this exercise, though necessary, will be. Mon-El, being who he is, would have likely handled these memories with much more cool distance than he is capable of pulling off – perhaps because it's part of his mental routine to revisit the worst moments of his life. Kara's voice startles Morgon and he looks down to meet her tearful gaze and answer her inquiry. "No spoilers," he forces a chuckle.

"Every drop of blood taken from me is a price well paid if it means this venal House finally dies with him," Shadow-Ral rasps, expending far too much of his quickly waning energy on attempting to be heard. Kara winces on his behalf. "Know that I regret none of it, so long as _that_ is the outcome." A loud boom fills the air causing the ground to shake beneath them, Kara must grab more tightly to Lord Ral to keep from dropping to her knees. The Shadow-Ral chuckles, despite his obvious pain. "The gods of Val-Or side with you this day. With both of us."

Morgon's hatred for House Gand, the king specifically, is clear in the enmity in his voice and Kara knows that if he still had his eyes they would, no doubt, burn with righteous fire – perhaps explaining why the king chose to take them in the first place. Finally, exhausted by her inability to change what unfolds before her, tears slip silently down her face as the shadows of Ral and Mon-El argue over escape. Mon-El makes no plans to leave without him, while Ral insists that his bond-brother leave his broken body behind.

Ral's condition worsens as each moment passes, bubbles of blood coming up from his injured lungs and coating his teeth a shiny red like the fired clay of the palace tiles. Yet, despite his unfortunate lot and the enormous pain he must be suffering, he sees hope in his own end, and hope in Mon-El's survival.

"I won't let you die here," Mon-El insists, still arguing though his bond-brother has given up the fight in favor of more important considerations.

"You will," Ral coughs, blood and spittle spewing from his mouth. "But you will make me one last promise before you do."

Mon-El tilts his head back, letting loose a scream of heartbreak and rage that turns Kara's blood cold. Through years of beatings and demoralization from his father, he never broke, but now as he faces the loss of his bond-brother and the walls he's spent years building, crumble like so much dust. Kara's heart breaks with him; because in a way she never could have predicted, she loves the dying man just as Mon-El does.

"I can't," she gulps, hugging her body more tightly against her Morgon's.

"Remember what I said," he reminds her, his voice strangely detached. "We can't stop once we've started. Not much longer now."

"What is it?" Mon-El asks his dying brother, defeated.

"Find a way," Ral coughs again. "After this place is gone and that old despot is dead…find a way to restore what Daxam destroyed."

"Destroyed…? I don't understand."

"This had nothing to do with you or what the king wanted," Ral confesses, dropping a bombshell that leaves Mon-El's eyes widening.

"You've lost a lot of blood," Mon-El surmises. "You're not thinking clearly."

"I did some digging," Ral explains, his tongue thick around the blood in his mouth. "I discovered something…buried deep in the Daxcess. Something they must…must have missed in The Purge. And he found out about it. He wanted to know what I had uncovered—" Ral coughs, a fine mist of blood striking Mon-El's already red shirt. "—so that he could find it and eliminate it."

Mon-El, both angered and terrified by this revelation, shakes his head in denial. "What were you thinking, being so reckless?"

"Been a long time since I had a decent bit of trouble," he jokes, smiling a red smile.

"Grife, Ral!" Mon-El curses.

"I found out…what it meant. You have to find him," Ral insists with a rasp, his life, and time for explanations, slipping away. His chest working harder and harder to rise as his mind, it seems, loses its grip on present.

"Find who?"

He drags a shallow, rattling breath. "Scientist. Jor-El," he manages. "Of Krypton."

Kara gasps as another boom rocks the building, chunks of the ceiling falling around them all. Not even Morgon's efforts can keep her from falling to her knees now and so he follows her down, keeping his arms tightly wrapped around her.

"What? I don't…." she can say nothing more as the ceiling above them falls to pieces. Even though the detritus can't touch her here, she's invisible to it, she can still feel the weight and the doom of it, and so Kara tucks her face into Morgon's chest anyway, afraid to witness what might be wrought from this bombardment.

"There's no time," Shadow-Ral rasps ever weaker around horribly split lips. "You have to go now, before you're buried with me. Find him…and you'll find a way…."

Mon-El nods and backs away towards the cell's only exit, reluctant to leave the only man he's ever called friend – called family. The only person who's only truly loved him for him. Preternaturally sensing Mon-El's continued presence, Ral's voice softens, "I'm already a memory, brother. Go…before it's too late."

Kara struggles with splitting her focus, just as Mon-El struggles with the idea of leaving Ral behind. A chunk of ceiling, damaged by the weight of the palace crumbling above and shaken loose by the constant besiegement of Kryptonite missiles falls from above, landing on Memory-Ral and killing him outright, his skull crushed beyond repair.

Kara screams, her body curling in on itself, overwhelmed by grief and horror at the same time. Rocking back and forth, Morgon's hands soothing her the best he can.

"Why?" she screams, her eyes weeping uncontrollable tears. "Why did you make me see that?"

"To show you," he replies. "To remind you that the man who just died…has been dead a very long time. You mustn't forget that."

"I haven't," she insists. She's tried so hard, told herself this very thing, to keep herself from loving him. To no avail.

"And to show you that Mon-El made a promise…one he has yet to keep, and that is why he can't leave this place. There's still too much to do, but to do it, he must first remember."

His words remind Kara of a famous poem she learned in high school. He's supposed to restore something about Daxam, something Daxam threw away. But how can he when Daxam is gone? Even if he can remember something he's forgotten, what can he possibly do about it? Even in the outside world. Even more intriguing, what did her uncle Jor-El have to do with all of it? How can he possibly help when he, too, has long been dead?

"Miles to go, before I sleep," she recites, because it all seems so hopeless.

Morgon holds out his hand, silently asking her to take the leap with him again. Without stopping to even consider what fire she might be jumping into now, she places her hand in his. Kara's eyes drift over to Ral's lifeless body, his once beautiful face no longer even recognizable, just as the scene before her de-pixilates and she is overtaken by the feeling of barreling down a snug slide, bouncing perilously against its sides as she goes.

Like channel surfing on a life-sized television, they drop right into the middle of a memory, settling into the moment just as King Vir backhands Mon-El hard enough to spend him sprawling across the floor. Kara gasps, covering her mouth with her hand. They're so close to the action, Mon-El falls at her feet, staring at the ground as he reaches to wipe a streak away from his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You will do as I say, boy!" the King grinds, his voice dark and edgy. There's no sense of a game being played here, as she sensed in earlier memories they visited. There is only rage.

From the tiny smile on Mon-El's face, Kara infers that he appreciates the magnitude of his father's anger and judges himself at the advantage for once. Slowly, he rises from the floor, in no hurry to strike back as one might be tempted to do – as his father might prefer of him.

"She is of good breeding and from a good house," King Vir explains, his voice making it clear that he shouldn't be forced to. "Certainly…better bred than the Adepts to which you insist upon clinging."

"I find they expect nothing from me but a few hours of mutual pleasure. A welcome respite," he snarks.

"You will latch with Margo Sel," the king vows, pointing a threatening finger at Mon-El, "and you will breed. The old way. Just as I planned."

Mon-El's eyes dart away and when Kara follows their direction she sees a young woman, no more than eighteen, trying to appear as invisible to the men in the room as Kara actually is. With straight, white blonde hair that falls like a perfect sheet to her rear end, and enormous topaz eyes hidden behind long, thick lashes, she is stunning to look at. Her alabaster skin blushes pink with mortification, except on her neck, where dark purple bruising, suspiciously shaped like fingers, disturbs the canvas of her near-flawless pale skin.

"Margo Sel, I presume," Kara concludes. She's not jealous, she insists. How can she be? Presumably, the woman is long gone, a ghost these last three decades.

"Indeed," Morgon confirms.

Kara studies Mon-El's face; the way he steadfastly refuses to linger on Margo for more than a second before his eyes dart away. The way he refuses to show any upset at the prospect of being ostensibly forced into this marriage by his father. "Is he pretending?" she wonders, not certain she wants to know the answer. "Like you say he does with me? Is he pretending so his father thinks he doesn't want her?"

The scene before them comes to a stop, pausing as if she's taking a break from her favorite recorded show to open the door for the delivery guy from Mr. Fu's. "Jealous, sunshine?" Morgon asks, and Kara is almost certain she hears a note of hope in his voice.

Kara shrugs, walking around Mon-El's figure, carefully examining the expression on his face, before edging her way closer to Morgon. "It's not like I didn't know, somewhere inside, that there were other women. Bushels and bushels of them," she chuckles, but the sound is forlorn, the happiness only a shadow. "Even before I knew he was the prince, I never imagined him living like a monk – certainly not when you grow up on Daxam. That has only been made even clearer to me since I came here."

"I'm sensing a 'but'…."

"I didn't think about it. Didn't _let_ myself think about it," she confesses, recalling one of her last conversations with Alex. "Or ask about it. He could have already had a mate for all I knew. One that he lost or…left behind. And I wouldn't know because I never asked. I haven't been the world's finest girlfriend, I guess. I've been very selfish, while accusing him of the same on more than one occasion."

"You're here now," Morgon reassures her, "and that's something. A big something. It means a lot."

Something about the way he says it, the hope in his voice laced with a thread of confidence, draws her attention away from the breathtaking young woman to study Morgon's face. As always, the warmth in his eyes strikes like lightning, turning her insides to mush and sending a rush of blood to her face. "You think so?" she asks, tilting her head to look up into those emerald green eyes.

"I do." After a breathless moment, he drops his hand on her shoulders and turns her around to face the scene once again.

"How long?" Shadow-Mon-El asks his father, scratching at his cheek as he sizes the young woman up. She shies away from his scrutiny.

"How long…what?" the older man counters.

"She has your taint on her," Mon-El grimaces. "How long has she been your lover? She seems…young," he decides, his tone hinting at something dark and forbidden. "Like she should still be in the chancel."

"She is eighteen," he grits, his tone indicating that he has no intention of defending his actions.

"My guess is he's been planning this for a while now." When the young woman's eyes drop down guilty, he takes another swing at it. "How old were you when this began? Thirteen? Fourteen?"

"Fifteen, Your Highness," she confirms, her voice barely audible.

"Why am I not surprised? Let me guess…he seduced you on your fifteenth birthday…and now you've gotten too old for him, Lady Sel," Mon-El whispers, as though sharing a secret.

"He loves me," she insists, shaking her head. "And he can't give me a child, so he says you're to do it."

A bark of laughter from Mon-El echoes in the room. "Loves you? He said that, did he? He used those actual words?" Leaning in close he whispers into the soft-shell of her ear, "I would have paid a fortune in credits to see that."

"I'm going to have a child of the royal blood," Lady Sel parrots. Clearly, words she's been told over and over.

"Which you will have to carry the old way, with all the inherent discomfort that comes with gestating for 16 moonrise cycles, where you will then be rewarded with the excruciating pain of delivery. Not to mention birthing a child that hasn't had the benefit of Advancement. He explained all of that to you, did he?"

Her nod is nearly imperceptible. "I am proud to serve Daxam, and my king, in this way."

But Kara catches something in her voice and a blink in her eyes and she wonders if Mon-El saw it too. If Morgon sees it. "She's frightened," Kara determines.

"Yes," Morgon confirms, visibly impressed by her deduction.

"Of what the king will do to her if she fails."

"To say nothing of what he would do to her if she tried to say 'no' outright," Morgon adds, the memory pausing again. "The palace dungeons are a popular waystation for people who try to say no to King Vir – sometimes even for the people they love."

Kara shudders at the reminder, her mind torturing her with a flash of Ral's twitching corpse.

"Like all those under King Vir's gaze, Lady Sel was held hostage to his whims. Although, to be fair, this wasn't a whim."

"What do you mean? How can treating two people like chess pieces be anything but a whim?"

"He planned this for a very, very long time, sunshine. Longer than either of them had been alive. Decades. He searched exhaustively for the right woman, with the right genetic traits. House Sel routinely produced scions with above average intelligence, as well strong immune systems and enviably long life-spans and King Vir wanted some of that for House Gand."

"Can't they just make those changes in the matrix?" she asks. "Like how they changed Mon-El in Advancement?"

Morgon shakes his head. "You can only tweak what's already there to begin with," he explains. "The average scion of House Sel, barring injury or accident, survives to the age of one hundred and forty – for House Gand, less than half of that, even with Advancement. And by this time, King Vir was already living on borrowed time."

"But none of this will help _him_ live longer," she points out, sensing that she's missing a piece of the puzzle – a big one. Kara can't help but consider the knowledge that the King of Daxam isn't long for this world in any case, no matter what machinations he tries to implement in pursuit of his own agenda.

"Ah, but for the monarch, securing power is about ensuring the succession for generations to come. He's aware that his time is dwindling, the best years of his life behind him, and he wants to be certain that House Gand will stand long after he's gone. House Gand has been in power for twelve generations and was nearly lost by his grandfather, 'The Puppet Prince', who placed too much faith in a religious zealot with his own agenda. King Vir had no intention of allowing anything like that to happen again and he's willing to do anything to ensure that."

"Like forcing his son to breed with his own mistress," Kara's mouth twists in a grimace of disgust.

"That's just scratching the surface."

Before she has a chance to interrogate him about that comment, that sounds like a throwaway but seems like so much more, the scene resumes.

"Is there nothing you won't do?" the memory of Mon-El turns on his father. "Fifteen?" he spits.

"It is the age!" he defends haughtily. Kara can taste bile in the back of her throat.

"For them to choose," Mon-El clarifies. "To learn in a safe environment with an Adept where they can discover their desires at their own pace and where the power dynamic is equitable, each student given the right to say no. Not the age to be plucked up by their monarch and fed lies – unable to refuse lest their entire family face your childish wrath."

"It matters not," the king shouts, waving Mon-El off like an annoying insect. "Lady Sel will do her duty." The king's grey eyes grow dark and the gravel in his voice dares them both to defy his wishes at their own peril. "As will you!"

"Duty!" Mon-El scoffs. "Are we Kryptonians now; so concerned with our obligations and forcing the unfortunate to suffer for the precious greater good? That's rich, Your Majesty!" His eyes dart back to Lady Sel, whose skin would shrivel and wrinkle if she grew any smaller in response to the raised voices.

A tension rises in the room, a pregnant pause, and Kara senses that something momentous is about to happen. Mon-El, his eyes on Lady Sel, gulps heavily, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as his arms cross at his chest.

"I won't do it," he announces, staring his father dead in the eye.

The kings jaw twitches and has ball into fists and everything inside of Kara tightens as through she's about to through herself between him and Mon-El even though it would do no good. Mon-El stands his ground, but a trickle of sweat trickles down his face, betraying his fear. Mocking his father to the older man's face is one thing, as if he has perfected the art of knowing just how far he can push his father before he must pay in dividends, but outright defying him is an act of suicide. Or at least it would have been, if he were anyone other than the Crown Prince.

It happens so fast, Kara is shocked to see a man of the king's age move with such speed and agility. In the space of a heartbeat, King Vir lifts his hand, takes three steps toward Mon-El and back hands son hard enough to bring him to his knees. Kara covers her mouth with both hands, and steps back against Morgon's chest, his arms going around her.

His embrace is not merely a comfort, she senses, but also a warning – that things are about to get much worse.

TBC


	18. Chapter 18

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 18/?

King Vir follows up his strike with another blow that sends Mon-El to the floor. "You will do as I say," he rages, his anger so potent that spittle spews from his mouth.

Mon-El, stupefied by the succession of blows, struggles to regain his senses as a string of saliva mixed with blood hangs from his mouth.

"And never forget that you are…utterly…replaceable. Did you honestly think that you were the only one?" the king says, as if throwing this in his face, both an insult and a threat.

Kara wants to ask what that means. Only one…what? But before she can Mon-El roars back to his senses, his father's words striking a nerve that seems to have electrified him and spurred him to passionate defense. "I will kill you for what you did to me," he shouts, his voice dropping into a deeper register. "I will never give you what you want!"

Kara gasps again, a memory of her own flashing suddenly into her mind. These are the words he said in the DEO while she'd tried to choke him into submission as he experienced the psychological break that manifested his new powers. At the time, his words had broken her heart – because she'd thought they were directed at her – born in her betrayal of his trust. But, in the darkness of his slipping mind, it's possible he'd been reliving this moment.

Mon-El attempts to scramble to his feet, but before he can, King Vir puts him down again. Like a child listening to her parents fight, Kara covers her ears at the sound of the king's foot meeting Mon-El's jaw. "No, no, no," she whimpers.

"You will," the king laughs, enjoying the confrontation with a demonic glee. He waves a hand at a guard near the door, who turns to open it. Two more guards bring in Ral, his feet dragging behind him, barely able to hold up his head.

Kara doesn't need to see his face to know it's Lord Ral, by now she knows his body intimately. "Morgon," she cries, as his eyes tighten around her.

"It's all right, sunshine," he consoles her, tucking his chin into her neck from behind. "The worst is already done."

But that doesn't make her feel better.

Dropping Ral in a heap on the floor between Mon-El and the king, the guards back away when King Vir waves a careless hand at them. Mon-El is forced to crawl his way over to his bond-brother, lifting Rals' head so that he can see his bloody and bruised face. There's a wide gash across one of his cheeks, a split lip and an eye swollen shut. His face looks as if someone had a good time working him over.

"Leave this place, brother," Ral rasps, grabbing onto Mon-El's shirt and using it to anchor himself to consciousness. "The first chance you get…run. Forget about me…he will never let you be free." The words are hardly out before Ral eyes slide closed, his body going limp before he slips into unconsciousness.

"What have you done?" Mon-El screams at his father, his eyes burning like fire.

"Just a promise," the king smirks, his face betraying no remorse for his actions, "…with more to come." With a wave of his hand he calls the guards back over and points at Ral. "Take him away."

"He used you as leverage," Kara realizes, watching as the guards drag his unconscious body out of sight, without a care for his injuries.

The memory stops, the room and its occupants dissipating like brightly colored wisps of smoke, leaving Kara and Lord Ral alone in a dark room inside the circle of a spotlight. It feels like a theater, except there are no chairs, no audience and the stage goes on and on without end in all directions.

Lord Ral releases her from his embrace, letting his arms fall to his sides. "Over the years, Mon-El actively separated himself from everything that might have mattered to him – wealth…convenience…the trappings of royalty. As the years went by this place became his gilded cage, and he systematically prepared himself to escape it. I was the one thing he couldn't give up. Not that I would have let him if he'd tried; I promised him I could take care of myself. That I knew what I was doing. Clearly, I overestimated my abilities to stay a step ahead of the king. I think this was his plan all along. He lulled us into believing he had no interest in harming me, all the while planning to use me to get what he wanted from Mon-El."

"But you chose it," she murmurs. "You wouldn't let him give in. Why?"

As Kara watches, Morgon shakes off the gloom like a layer a dust and plasters a grin on his face, pointing towards the now dissipated memory. "Hey, did you see what happened there?" he asks, redirecting her attention and evading her question all at once.

"What?"

"He stood up to the king, before he even knew I was being held hostage. He believed… _I_ believed…he could be a great man if only he could get out from under the king's thumb. That Mon-El had it in him to be a better king than those that came before, to be a better man than those that surrounded him. And in that moment…he was; he truly was. He did it for her, Kara. He faced down the most sadistic ruler Daxam has known in ten generations, and he did it for someone else, someone he didn't even know. Don't you see?"

He spins around to face her and Kara can see the plea in his eyes, begging her to see what's no longer there to be seen. Perhaps for anyone else, it would have been easy to dismiss Morgon's desperate optimism, but she is Kara Danvers and desperate optimism is her bread and butter. She wants to see what he sees, wants to see the best in Mon-El – to know his goodness was there before they met. To understand that it was something he was forced to tuck away for safekeeping while he lived a life that kept his heart intact, even if it meant sacrificing the parts of himself that loved, and empathized – the parts of him that allowed compassion to rise to the surface.

"He saw that she was scared, that she didn't want this and…refused to participate," she deduces, allowing herself to see deeper into the memory.

"Exactly!" Morgon crows, his entire face lighting up with joy. "Exactly." He holds out his hand and Kara accepts it instinctively, without even taking a moment to process her deduction.

This time they're taken out of the palace, the world around them burning and the sky above them falling in fiery green chunks of Kryptonite. On instinct, Kara flinches away, expecting that gut-wrenching pain and splitting headache that comes at the first brush of contact with her greatest weakness. But it never comes, because horrific or not, this is still just a memory of a time long past. A time she will never forget.

"Krypton," she whispers.

Before them, they watch as Mon-El confronts the king who seems more than willing to leave his planet behind, but Mon-El is having none of it. He's wearing the clothes in which she first saw him when he crashed on Earth, and he and a disheveled King Vir stand before a Kryptonian-made pod. So when the king points a weapon at Mon-El's face, Kara tells herself that he will escape unscathed, but her body must not believe her because a gasp of fright spills from her mouth and heart sets to racing in her chest.

Mon-El grabs the barrel of the weapon and holds it tighter to his forehead, daring the king, in no uncertain terms, to pull the trigger. He is in a rage unlike any she's ever witnessed from him before, and it strikes her suddenly just why that is. "You're dead," she concludes, realizing that Mon-El is awash in grief. Hating himself for being unable to save his brother.

"Yes," Ral confirms.

When the king hesitates to pull the trigger, Mon-El knocks the weapon from the older man's hand, sending the king doubling over in pain. For a moment, everything in their tiny bubble seems to stop. Time crawls despite the meteors falling from the sky or the fires closing in on their position. Kara holds her breath, waiting to see if Mon-El will use the weapon, now in his hands, against the father for whom he has no love.

She waits for the gun to report and for the king's head to explode. Mon-El is swimming in anguish, his brother having just died before his eyes, made helpless by the man he now has at his mercy. There are many who would believe the king's death at Mon-El's hands would be nothing less than the justice a sadistic monster would deserve.

But would it be the justice _Mon_ - _El_ deserves?

Taking a life is not without consequences, she knows, especially when the killing blow is delivered in the heat of the moment, the action later regretted at length. It leaves a stain that can't be washed out. While others can forgive him – while _she_ can forgive him – the hardest absolution to earn comes from within. It is the mercy we are least willing to offer.

Kara imagines herself in Mon-El's shoes and wonders what she would do. A rage rises within as she thinks of someone taking Alex from her, of making it impossible to save her sister, and Kara finds herself inside of Mon-El's mindset. So she's surprised when Mon-El lowers the weapon and instead of delivering the justice the king has earned, he speaks.

"You're not going anywhere!" Mon-El must shout to be heard over the sound of random explosions and meteors striking the planet surface – the sound of screams she tries to block out, because there's nothing that can be done to save them. "You have a lot to the answer for, and I'm here to make sure you do."

"Who do you think you are?" the king spits, still bent over, a flat crystal dangling from a chain around his neck.

"Exactly what you made me." Mon-El reaches forward and tears the chain away, along with the crystal.

"No!" the king cries, making a desperate grab for stolen item.

"The Royal Seal," Morgon explains, before Kara can ask.

"For your crimes against your people, I sentence you to live as one of them…in the paradise you created. That is…if you can manage to survive the wrath of the gods." Before Kara can breathe a sigh of relief or celebrate that Mon-El has chosen to let his brother's tormenter live, Mon-El delivers a punch to the king's jaw. The older man sprawls to the ground, just as Mon-El had done in the earlier memory. "That was for Ral," Mon-El angrily announces, slipping the chain and crystal into his trouser pocket. Kara feels a sense of righteous indignation on Ral's behalf as the man, relieved of his kingly deportment, cowers at Mon-El's feet.

Together they watch as Mon-El leaves the king behind, using another crystal to open the pod and leaping in as soon as the canopy disappears. Under his command, it takes only seconds for the pod to prime up, shaking and trembling as it builds the kinetic energy deep in its core.

"He had a promise to keep," Morgon explains. "But to do so, he had to leave the king to die."

Finally, the pod rockets into the atmosphere, Kara tilting her head back to watch it go. As it disappears into the clouds, Kara's eyes slip closed thanking Rao that thirty years ago he made it safely to space, despite the father that might have killed him, or the remains of Krypton pummeling Daxam's surface, and streaking across the sky like missiles.

A sharp intake of breath comes from behind and her eyes snap open as Morgon's hand lands heavily on her shoulder.

"We're running out of time," he frets as the scene de-pixilates. Kara gets the distinct feeling they're on the run, like foxes hunted in the brush by zealous hounds.

The world is still falling apart when they crash land into the next memory, huddling together as if to protect themselves from falling debris, smoke and flames. Through the slits of her eyes, Kara recognizes the palace's main hall, a cavernous room where visiting dignitaries are greeted and take audience with the king, and courtiers dance around each other, seeking a seat at the table of power. But now, no one sits at that table, as bodies lay everywhere, some partially buried beneath rubble and others, little more than corpses still on fire.

Mon-El stumbles into the main hall of the palace and is immediately brought upright, his face registering the horror of the scene before him, the bodies and the devastation, the crumbling of the ceiling overhead. With the back of his hand, he shields his nose from the horrific smell of charred flesh and hair as he cautiously traverses the damaged floor, skirting around bodies where he can and climbing over the larger debris.

He's trembling visibly, and Kara's mind cobbles the pieces of this memory puzzle together. "He's just coming from the dungeon."

"Yes," Ral confirms. "I know it's confusing, but visiting the memories out of order buys us a little more time. Of which, we are quickly running out," he adds, an edge of anxiety in his voice.

As Kara watches Mon-El stumble over another pile of debris her eyes a drawn to corpse just a few meters away. Unlike the crush injuries and burning deaths she's witnessed, this corpse's demise is notably different, in that he was clearly killed with weapons fire to the face. What takes her breath away is the silver House of El glyph on the sleeve of his black shirt, colors indicating that he was here in an official capacity, under a blanket of diplomatic security. Though his face is too damaged for identification, even by a loved one, Kara instantly recognizes the ring on his right hand that marks him as an officer of the Sapphire Guard. To her knowledge, she'd had only one relative in the Sapphire Guard who survived Zod's coup attempt and remained loyal to the Law Council.

"Loth," she sighs, grieving him in the few moments she's allowed. Why was he here? To warn Daxam of the impending disaster that is – _was_ – upon them? Had he known that he likely would not have made it off Daxam alive after delivering his message? It matters not, Kara thinks, because Loth was the kind of Kryptonian who would not have hesitated in the face of danger.

A moan and a weak call for help nearby catches her attention and the attention of Memory-Mon-El as well. For both Kara and Mon-El it's difficult to discern where the sound originates, and so when another boom rocks the building he turns toward the exit, until he hears another feeble cry for help.

Kara watches the struggle on Mon-El's face as he considers the exit and his diminishing chances of escape if he stops to render aid. She sees the moment he reluctantly throws that caution to the wind and turns his back to the freedom the nearby hole in the outer wall offers.

Climbing over bodies and piles of rubble, he finally locates the source of the distress, a bloodied arm limply waving from within a pile of broken stone. He delicately moves aside bricks and chunks of ceiling, eventually revealing, to Kara's surprised, a horribly injured Lady Sel. A tear on her scalp has turned her flaxen hair red, and the blood loss has left her slightly disoriented.

Her wounds are mortal, Kara determines, having seen a more than a few crush injuries as a hero. As a hero, these types of injuries are often the worst for her; because if not killed outright, people often remain alert, their lives seemingly salvageable, but only for so long as their bodies remained under pressure. Debris removed, Kara has no doubt Lady Sel would be dead from internal bleeding in a matter of mere heartbeats. Quickly enough that not even super speed could save her. Mon-El attempts to free her, but knowing what Kara already knows, Lady Sel informs him it's too late.

Mon-El soothes her in her last moments. Offers her a forgiveness she craves, but costs him nothing to give. Claiming death as punishment for her naiveté, he becomes angry, so angry Kara can feel it in the air around them, as if the memory pulses with it. But it's not directed at the young woman; instead, it's reserved for the man who abandoned her in her last moments alive, destroying her belief that she was loved.

He demands to know where the king has gone and in her last moments she offers him the information that will lead him to the Loth-El's now pilot-less pod. Kara watches the next few moments until Lady Sel breathes her last labored and gurgling breath, and silently commends her spirit into the everlasting warmth of Rao's Light.

After leaving Lady Sel's corpse, Mon-El drops down beside Loth's body and curls back the dead man's fingers, pulling from his hand a data crystal. It contains upon it everything about Loth from his diplomatic documents, medical records including the entirety of his family tree going back at least ten generations, as well as his travel papers and itinerary. The Kryptonian pod would be keyed specifically to the crystal. King Vir must have been in a hurry to escape, mindless with fear, if he forgot to retrieve the crystal. His absent-mindedness bought Mon-El enough time to catch up to him, and to take control of the pod, when the king could not.

Just as Mon-El stands a dark expression of determination on his face, the entire scene comes to a halt.

"Grife!" Morgon curses. "We're out of time."

Kara doesn't register the tight grip on her arm until she's spinning around and pacing a very angry, very masterful Mon-El.

"What in the name of Val-Or's Exultation do you think you're doing, Kryptonian?" he demands, his brows set in a hard, straight line.

A part of her withers inside at the power of his dominance and her eyes dart over to Morgon, who seems to lose some of his confidence, his light fading to a dim flicker. He doesn't seem to fear Mon-El, but merely gives way to his presence in a way that both piques Kara's interest and ruffles her protective feathers. So powerful and overwhelming is the prince's presence that Kara must fight the instinct to drop to her knees in submissive position. Now is the time to remember who she truly is.

Mon-El's grip relents as he turns his head in Lord Ral's direction. "I gave you what you wanted," he says to the other man. "Your chance to be alone with her. This is how you repay me?"

"She has every right—" Ral defends.

"She is here uninvited," the prince interjects angrily, turning back to Kara, his hardened gray eyes boring into hers. Kara must force herself to meet his stare head-on. "And she refuses to leave. She has the rights I allow her, which are to spread her legs when and how I demand, until such time as she comes to her senses, and cries mercy. That was our agreement, was it not, Kryptonian?"

"How much longer do you think you can keep up this pretense, _brother_?" Lord Ral asks, his voice soft with a tinge of disappointment lancing through his tone.

"As long as I must." His hand clamps unforgivingly down upon her shoulder, driving her to her knees, reminding Kara of the use he has for her here. "It took me quite some time to catch up to you."

Mon-El circles around Kara's kneeling figure before she feels his hand land gently at the top of her head and after a moment he begins to slowly, delicately stroke the silken strands. At first, Kara stiffens beneath his caress, understanding an implied threat in the softness of his touch. In this place, it is not his way to be soft with her and so she can only hazard a guess as to his intentions. Here, gentleness is the purview of Lord Ral.

Sensing the anger, coming from him in waves, she forces her body to relax and leans against him. Arms wrapping loosely around his leg, she tilts her head against the outside of his thigh hoping to soothe the savage beast that lies just beneath the surface of his hyper-controlled exterior.

"Very clever…visiting the worst of my memories in random order." His voice is frightfully still, like the slow, deep purr of a predator in the seconds before pouncing.

"It's what you would have done," Ral shrugs, his hands locked behind his back. For perhaps the first time he feels truly at odds with his bond-brother, carefully scrutinizing Mon-El's facial expressions and body language in search of impending threats he may visit upon precious Kara.

"Yes, which is why I found you…eventually."

Since Kara's arrival, Ral has felt Mon-El receding from him like the tide slinks away from the shore of the Crimson Sea. When Kara found him in the Old Palace Gardens, insisting the prince had commanded her to serve him, Ral had hoped for a moment that using Kara as an envoy had been Mon-El's way of drawing them closer together. But now he sees that wasn't the case. "If you hadn't distanced yourself from me quite so much, you might have found us more quickly. We were so close, brother. She was seeing you for who you truly are. You should trust her, Mon-El. You _can_ trust her."

Mon-El's mouth curls up in a cynical smile that skirts the border of a sneer, as he drops to his haunches and, placing his index finger beneath her chin, tilts her face up to meet his gaze. "Trust a Kryptonian? Everyone knows their compassion is for show, and their judgement runs deep. And what is that you think you saw, Kryptonian? A little boy abused by a cruel father?"

At first that is what she saw, she admits to herself, wanting only to charge in and pull him away from the opposing figure that used his fists and his feet and his words to hurt a boy who could do little to defend himself. But as she saw more and more she stopped seeing the weapon and started to see the shield. "I saw a strength like iron, forged in fire. I saw a boy grow into a man who could have turned into the monster his father wanted him to become, but instead he resisted with everything he had inside of him."

Long ago, in this endless eternity, Mon-El had convinced himself that he would drown in her pity if he ever found the courage to tell her the truth. But now he is taken aback by her answer, and also the stark lack of that emotion he expected to see in her comet-blue eyes. Standing up, he backs away from her, shaking his head. "I betrayed my bond-brother because I was too stubborn to give my father what he wanted."

Kara shakes her head insistently. "You saw a girl who feared him even more than you did, and you turned his focus away from her."

"For all the good it did!" he shouts. "He left her to die anyway!"

"Yes, but _you_ didn't." Kara holds out a hand, as though calling him towards her. She's reaching him, she knows it, and can it feel it inside, in the roiling pit of her stomach. The walls he's built around his heart begin to crumble, she just needs more time. "You got the information you needed from her, and you could have left her to die alone, but you didn't! You held her hand in her last moments and you spoke reassuring words to her. Sometimes, holding a person's hand as the darkness closes in around them is the most heroic act a person can perform. Mon-El…it's the hardest lesson a hero ever learns…that you can't save everyone. That we're not meant to."

Something about her words, harden him on the inside and she watches as his hands turn to fists and his eyes, a warm silver, turn to hard gray. "I'm not a hero!" he denies, his voice hoarse with the vehemence of it. He storms at her then, grabbing at her wrist and yanking her to her feet. "You think you know," he shouts in her face. "You think you see! But you don't know who I really am! You don't know what he made me!"

Lord Ral rushes them then, grabbing at Mon-El's shoulders attempting to pull Mon-El away from her, but to little affect. Mon-El holds tight to her wrist with one hand and pulls her body flush to his with the other. Forgetting his fear and even the shame and self-hatred he buries deep with every breath he takes, he thinks only of making her _see_.

"I'll show you," he vows, his voice sand and gravel. "And when you see—when you finally see – you'll wish you'd never let me touch that perfect skin of yours. You'll wish I hadn't defiled your Kryptonian perfection."

The next instant Kara imagines she now knows how it must feel to be toothpaste, unceremoniously squeezed from the tube and smashed onto the bristles of a far too firm brush. It stings to land in this memory, as if the air around them is filled with hot needles pressing into her skin. Kara's struck with the primal desire to curl into fetal position, to protect herself from whatever might be coming, wondering if the pain she feels stems from the hand gripping tightly to her wrist, or from the memory itself, as though it is a living, breathing thing striking at her – at them – like a snake injecting its destructive venom.

"Do you know why I call you Mon-El, boy?" she hears the voice of Daxam's last king inquire. There's something strange about his voice, perhaps it's that he isn't yelling or shouting for once. "It comes from the Kryptonian House of El," he answers before the memory of Mon-El, standing before him with his hands clasped behind his back, can even muster a response.

"He loves the sound of his own voice," Mon-El whispers, as if afraid to be heard by the projection of his father. "He'd much rather answer his own questions than hear any answer I might provide. I learned that before puberty. It took more than a few blows though…to learn which questions he wanted answered and which were merely rhetorical." The memory version of him is much younger, but on the cusp of manhood, perhaps 21 years old. Even at such a young ago, already the stubble that grows on his face has found its full purpose, sprouting thickly along his jawline.

King Vir pours himself an orange-hued drink from a decanter into a slim-fluted glass "House of El likes to think of itself as the great purveyor of hope…through science, as if it's something one can just buy or sell. But I called you Mon-El because you were my last hope and since you came from Krypton – in a way – I thought it appropriate. And funny. My own private little joke…."

Younger Mon-El's head shoots up, his eyebrows forming a straight line. "Came from Krypton?" Kara's own ears perk up at this new revelation.

"Ahh…now I see I have your attention," King Vir purrs, sweeping his formal overcloak dramatically aside as he sank into a high-back chair. "Long ago, before I became king, my first wife 'lovingly' poured a drink for me each night before bedtime. It was her specialty, she claimed, and she called it The Kiss Goodnight. What I didn't know was that, little by little, her goodnight kisses were poisoning me. It was a masterful plan," he smiles, ironically admiring his poisoner. "Had she not been caught, I would have slowly wasted away, my body falling apart from the inside out. On a cellular level."

"But she was caught," Mon-El infers.

Vir nods, staring at the liquid in his glass, suspiciously before throwing caution to the wind and taking a slow sip. "But the damage was done," he replies. "Having failed in her ultimate quest, she succeeded on a grander scale, though she didn't live long enough to either witness or enjoy her victory. I made sure of that." Before Mon-El can question, King Vir barrels on.

"Her poison was meant to mimic a slow wasting disease, but in the process she compromised the structure and viability of my speed. While I was able to heal from most of the physical damage she wrought, that remains irrevocably corrupted. The finest Manipulators at PAGE informed me that any scion I produced would be degraded beyond lawful standards of uniformity, and what's more…even if they were able to manipulate the scion's genetic makeup to reach the minimum of uniformity, subsequent generations would see a marked diminish in returns, as the damage done would only grow. So…though that treacherous bitch didn't destroy _me_ …she only managed to destroy my legacy…the bloodline."

Kara and the long-ago memory of Mon-El don near-matching expressions of confusion, attempting to unravel the byzantine mystery the king has dropped before them.

"My first wife had been from House Korbin, and they had long been trying to wheedle their way onto Daxam's throne. Latching to their eldest daughter was my father's attempt to lay such schemes to rest. Instead it practically handed them the throne. Well, after destroying my chances of producing an heir, I wasn't about to just yield it to them, boy. No, I was not." A shadow crosses the king's face and his eyes glaze over transported back to a time long ago.

Memory-Mon-El says nothing, only crosses his arms as the king continues on after a moment of quiet reflection. "Even after I shipped her body back to them – in pieces – I could feel them breathing gleefully down my neck. My own father wasn't even dead yet, but House Korbin has a long memory…they were preparing to wait me out. So I set my mind and my resources to a plan."

"A plan…to fix your…contribution," Memory-Mon-El said, a strain of hope in his voice that stank of denial.

The king thrust his empty glass at Mon-El, his demand for another round unvoiced, but unmistakable. "Are you even listening, boy? I am beyond hope." He sits back into his chair, smiling as his eyes rake up and down Mon-El as though searching for the armor's chink through which to slide a blade. Luckily…I wouldn't need it. I needed only a single, uncorrupted cell to get what I needed for what I had in mind. It took four years and seven dead spies before the eighth was finally able to obtain from Krypton the technology I needed."

Kara's heart sinks at the mention of Kryptonian technology, and so does her face, which transforms into a mask of utter despair. "No," she groans her body sinking into her captor's.

"Look who's catching on," Mon-El taunts her, his lips brushing against the shell of her ear.

"They'd been using the technology for decades," the king continues to explain, a sneer growing on his face. "All the while looking down their noses at us for buying and selling slaves to serve us our drinks and read bedtime stories to our children, the Kryptonians were making them from scratch…and not for any such noble purposes…but to serve as medical test subjects and to be farmed for spare parts, just so they could extend their own pathetic, narrow little lives. People made…just so they could die. And they have the gall to call _me_ 'monstrous'."

"You're a clone," Kara concludes.

"The monster he made," Mon-El confirms, his grey eyes hard and shiny, not even a spark of warmth in their dark depths. "They say my _father_ was born cruel," he continues, "that he enjoyed killing animals and watching people cry. As he grew older, he enjoyed inflicting pain upon his lovers. No one can be certain that he killed his later wives, but let's not kid ourselves…everyone knows he did it."

"And Lord Ral's mother?" she wonders.

Mon-El shrugs sadly, releasing Kara's arm, so that she could step away. "She came in to the marriage without hope for love or soft endearments. Of course, she'd heard the rumors. Who hadn't?" he asks, rhetorically.

"So she sacrificed her body and her sanity so that her son would be a man of position," Ral finishes. "Of course…he had no idea of such things. Only that the light never returned to her eyes."

Kara turns back to scene still playing out before them, her eyes studying the King and searching for some sign that Mon-El's destiny is somehow set to the same path as the hard, cruel man she despises. "You don't look _that_ much like him," she points out, almost as if trying to console him. "There's a resemblance, obviously, but you don't look like a clone – even with the difference in age I can tell you're not the same," she points out, hope springing in her chest. "Your nose is broader and his face, longer."

"Yes, the Manipulators made some changes in Advancement. Ral already told you some of them. Were I to grow up and look the spitting image of the king, well then…things could get ugly."

"Uglier," Ral corrects. "Of course, there were always rumors, and the truth of his birth was an open secret amongst palace insiders. The Korbins knew, of course, but before Mon-El was even flushed from the matrix, King Vir weakened their house until they feared his reckoning."

"Creating me may have been his life's mission," Mon-El said, "but killing Korbins was his favorite hobby."

"He said it kept him busy while spy after spy failed to uncover the process he required."

"He invented new ways to discreetly remove Korbins from the board."

"Leaving the Matriarch of House Korbin alive, of course, to watch as her own legacy was chipped away piece by piece."

"Until they became merely a shadow of the strong and powerful force they once were."

Like watching a tennis match, Kara observes as Mon-El and Lord Ral picked up each other's cues, practically finishing one another's thoughts. They continue on, feeding her more and more of the history behind Mon-El's birth, and the atrocities King Vir perpetrated in his single-minded mission to bring that about. Ral's warmth, the compassion in his emerald green eyes combats the hard bitterness shining like glass in Mon-El's.

Kara hears once more of the treatment Mon-El received at his maker's hands – as if she needed the words after witnessing the memories. Barely listening to their accounts, instead she seeks their eyes – warm to cold and back again. One emotional, miserable and affected, while the other was detached and walled off from her – pushing the memories of his life at her like they were something to be rid of, rather than shared.

It strikes Kara then what she's been missing all this time, and suddenly she just…knows. Can feel it in her heart.

"You're not him," she blurts out, interrupting their stories. The projections of King Vir and young Mon-El had faded to nothingness, leaving them in a black void, like a blank canvas. "He's not your destiny."

Comically, both of their mouths slam shut, which she finds not at all surprising.

"That's what you're afraid of…isn't it?" she asks. "You were afraid I would find out what you were and want nothing to do with the clone of King Vir the Cruel. Isn't that right?"

"I _am_ him!" Mon-El insists.

"No…that's just what he wanted you to think. What he wanted you to believe. He's been dead for 30 years, why are you still trying to give him what he wanted?"

"But I think about it," he confesses, his voice strangled with shame. "I can feel his darkness inside of me."

"Everyone _thinks_ about it," Kara points out. "He tried to make you like him. He thought by treating you cruelly he could make you cruel. He treated you like a slave and all he did was give you compassion for the slaves and people with lives harder than yours." Kara approaches, cupping his bearded cheeks gently in her hands, before smashing her lips against his.

At first, Mon-El's only response is to stiffen against her assault, grabbing her arms to peel her away from him. With a tearing sound her lips reluctantly part from his, and Kara pushes against his strength, determined to renew that contact. When she can't reach his mouth with hers, she speaks instead.

"But I know the truth," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "There's light and darkness in all of us."

"Not in you," Ral points out, stepping forward to defend her.

"Yes!" she disagrees insistently. Kara had half-expected him to jump to her defense, and so throws him a tremulous smile when he doesn't disappoint. "In me, too. I hated you at first," Kara confesses to Mon-El, her body no longer fighting against his. "For no other reason than your place of birth. I knew nothing about you, not even your name, and I accused you of being a murderer." Her eyes well up at the memory, one she wishes she could forget entirely. "Well… _attempted_ murderer."

Mon-El studies the expression of her face, the unmistakable despair of a little girl lost. Though he has no memory of their first meeting, but for the one that occurred in this place, he can see that the event has left a smear of darkness on her, like a streak of dirt on shiny, pristine satin.

"I never thought of myself that way," she continues. "As a person who can hate another without words or deeds to speak for them…only a lineage over which they had no control. To hate someone because of where they were born…over their culture…I always thought I was better than that."

"Clearly you got over it," Mon-El points out, his own voice lifeless to his ears.

"Because _you_ made me," she argues, resolutely. "You made me see that I was wrong. You made me give you a chance. You had to win me over…and you did. In the end, it was easier to admit you weren't who I thought you were, than it was to admit how wrong I was to begin with. How that darkness was inside of me, just like everyone else. But it was there…it _is_ there." Kara takes a deep, shuddering breath, her heart hammering in her chest as she places her hands against his cheeks. "Watching him hurt you…just a little boy…I wanted to…to…turn him into a sticky paste. I wanted to hear him beg for his life, my hands wrapped around his throat. It _is_ there inside of me, Mon-El. I understand how hard it is to fight something you can't see or touch, something you can't punch into submission or throw into a cell."

"What if I end up like him?" Mon-El asks, more to himself than to her really.

Her heart stops at the vulnerability she sees in his grey eyes, now liquid like mercury. It's as if a veil has been peeled away, revealing the fear he carries so deep he hardly allows himself to acknowledge it, except in his darkest moments. "You won't," she promises. "Because you're not him. You weren't born cruel. You weren't horribly betrayed by a wife and her family, and you grew up with a brother that kept you connected to your emotions, even when it would have been easier not to be."

"And because he has you?" Ral asks, the upward inflection of his voice betraying the tiniest amount of insecurity.

"Yes," she replies. "Because Rao, in his wisdom, made us for each other; put us on convergent paths – our needs and desires aligned." When he turns his face from hers, Kara grips Mon-El's face tighter – tighter than she's ever been allowed as his submissive partner – and turns his face so that their eyes make contact. "I don't care what brought you to me, or how you got here, or what changes he made to you so that he could use you to his own ends. All I care about is that when this world ended, you found a way to Earth and landed at my feet."

Alex had made her feel bad about not delving into the intricacies of Mon-El's life before he crash landed in National City. In the circumstances, at the time, his meltdown sending him into this coma, the revelation of her selfishness has nearly crippled her with guilt. Now, in an unexpected turnabout, she must convince him that everything that came before the day of his crashing means nothing to her.

Before she has a chance to take a breath, his lips crash down on hers, his mouth engulfing them until she has no choice but to open herself to his onslaught.

Wordlessly, his mouth begs her to prove her assertions – to use her body to convince him that his origins mean less to her than this connection they share. Breathlessly, hungrily, he begs her to convince him he's more than what he believes himself to be.

Kara melts against him without an ounce of resistance, let alone revulsion, and her stomach flips as the world twists around them. A welcome wetness forms in her core when one of Ral's hands grips her hip and the other cups her breast.

Kara breaks away from the kiss because she must, her mind still telling her that air is a necessity, and her head drops back on the bony surface of Ral's shoulder, as Mon-El's lips dive for her neck, licking and sucking as the just of his hard cock butts up against her pubis. Ral's fingers pluck at the nipple of one of her breasts, adding a slight twist while his mouth alternates between gently biting and sucking on her earlobe.

Dragging her eyelids open, she discovers that darkness of the void in Mon-El's memories replaced by the ostentation of his palace quarters. Gone too are the plain whites of her traveling costume, melting and tightening into the black sinew of her submission harness. Added now to the harness as well as her collar, is a blindfold, throwing her already hazy world into total darkness. This new layer of sensuality, added to the taut crisscross of the leather digging into her skin, the strong hands now skimming against her naked flesh, and the wetness from her cunt now spreading to her thighs, has Kara melting against them both as she surrenders her control to them.

She breathes a sigh of relief.


	19. Chapter 19

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Please be aware of the graphic nature of this chapter. So...threesome anyone?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 19/?

Hands seem everywhere on her skin, touching every part of her body and Kara's hard pressed to guess to which of her lover's they belong. They brush, grasp, squeeze, slide, pinch and all she can do is moan and gasp, her brain occupied mainly with forcing her lungs to function.

A warm mouth sucks on her taut nipple as one hand – and then another – dips into the wet seam between her legs. Strong, insistent fingers, her master's, work between her tender folds, coaxing forth and spreading her arousal until she can hear the wet sound of it over the rasp of her own breathing.

The mouth at her breast sucks languorously, unhurried, the tongue circling and toying with the nipple as fingers cup and mold the plump flesh to peak arousal – her beautiful Lord Ral. A moment later, his hand departs, but not his mouth, two fingers trailing down her ribcage, skirting around her waist to her belly button and then down into her snatch.

Both lovers jockey for position as if they each know their place from well-seasoned practice, two fingers teasing her clit, while two more press up into her hungry cunt. Kara turns her head to one side as her breath catches, only to find her mouth being taken, a tongue insistently pushing its way inside. From the taste and the overpowering aggression of the tongue that forces its way inside, she knows it is her master.

Age old instinct has her hips rutting at the hands inside of her, seeking fulfillment for the ravenous want screaming from her core – a want that leaves a cavernous void inside of her, aching to be filled. Her lord's mouth increases its pressure, now sucking mercilessly at her breast as though attempting to draw her very soul into himself. A hard cock nestles between the globes of her ass, kicking her need into the stratosphere.

As though answering her need, like an un-prayed prayer, she finds herself on her back in the center of her master's enormous fur-covered, feather bed without any memory of being moved or jostled into position. One mouth is exchanged for another, sucking her tongue into warmness as two hands, from two masters, spread her thighs wide open. Drugged with sensation and the hunger that can't be satisfied, she's most aware of the presence that hovers over her, and the cock that, in one swift stroke, replaces the emptiness at her core with searing hot fullness, and hardly a caress with the tip of his cock, begging permission to enter. Not that any was needed

"Unnnnggg," she groans into her master's mouth, her hips lifting to take Lord Ral in even deeper.

Removing one of her senses has narrowed her world down to what she can hear and feel and taste. Her master tastes of something sweet with the slightest hint of tang of sour on the tip of her tongue. She could taste it in the air when her master and his friends smoked their ojym weed.

Kara realizes now that he has always tasted this way, even in the outside world. In the darkness, deprived of the sense that most people depend upon the most, Kara recalls the flavor of him – sweet pipe weed on the very tip of her tongue as they kissed or when she would sample his skin or suck his cock. She could always taste his sweetness, even over the salty tang of his sweat and other emissions.

Somehow the pipe weed flavor has made itself a part of him, wormed its way into his DNA, because even now, more than thirty years since he last partook, there's still remnants of its flavor pouring from his skin. It makes her sad for a moment, now knowing what his life was truly like in the royal palace, as Daxam's Puppet Prince, where sex and drugs were the only escape from the misery visited upon him by the man who called himself Mon-El's father.

Lord Ral's breath comes hot and heavy, his groans a rough timbre in her ear that sends shivers racing down her spine. He withdraws from her warmth and drives back in without hesitation, her pussy taking him to the root, ever grateful for his attentions. Her hips tilt upward of their own volition to welcome and encourage him.

The feather mattress beneath their bodies seems to swallow her, absorbing each thrust as Lord Ral pounds her deep into its recesses, one hand on her knee to hold her thighs open. Without the resistance of a firm surface to support her, the sound of his pelvis clashing with hers is lower and heavier in tone. With each stroke, Ral thuds hard against her with a measured _thunk-thunk-thunk_ instead the usual _smack-smack-smack_ of slapping skin.The bone-jarring sound of it – the sensation of it – makes her feel thoroughly possessed and another gush of wetness heats her passage in response. She arches her back and spreads her thighs wider apart.

With hardly a break in his rhythm, Ral adjusts position, wedging his hands under her armpits as he looms over her, his elbows locking his arms straight. His teeth grit together, muscles in his jaw ticking as he wards off the climax that barrels his way. Fucking her, the bone-grinding thud of his pelvis pounding her plumped and hungry pubis forces air from her lungs with an almost delicate, "Unngh…unngh…unngh…."

The sound of her body's surrender drives both of her lovers nearer to the brink of madness. She can hear the low sighs of her master as he occasionally strokes his member to envious and raging readiness. She knows the sound of him, the noises he makes when pleasuring himself versus those he emits when he's buried in her heat.

It feels so good she wants it to never end, and for a moment she contemplates the benefits of never leaving this place. Briefly Kara's old personality, her conscience, rears its head, telling her this is wrong, receiving pleasure from two men. She quickly shuts that white noise out. Whether inside his mind or in the outside world, her pleasure is her own, to choose according to her will. Knowing she will have to give up the Ral avatar sooner rather than later, she will not deny herself the pleasure of his cock filling her, the sound of his heavy breath over her.

Her Daxamite education, it seems, is complete.

She catches both of their scents in the air: her master's heady tang of sweet pipe weed and Lord Ral's lighter aroma of dessert wine. Mixed with their unique scents is the smell of her musk, the aroma of her arousal, growing stronger by the moment as she gives her body up to them.

Silently, her master cups and squeezes her breast, tweaking the nipple with a painful jerk before sliding his hand down her ribcage and over her flat tightening belly to slip two fingers into the apex of her soaking pussy, unerringly finding her clit. Nestling the flush pearl between his thumb and forefinger as Ral's cock retreats, her master pinches the already swollen bundle of nerves in time with his bond-brother's next thrust.

Her breath catches as white-hot pleasure burns through her like a searing knife slicing through supple leather, the intensity of the pain mingling perfectly with the pleasure of the cock rutting inside of her. Thighs quivering, her belly tightens and her shoulders seize as her fingers tear at the coverlet of soft belling fur beneath her.

"Mmmmm," she moans, biting down on her lower lip when her master pinches her again, this time harder. His first pinch had just been a warning of more to come Kara realizes when the excruciating fire burns through her again. Her breath comes harder and faster as her approaching orgasm seems to circle around her, held at bay only by the fear of what might happen if she allows it to swamp her. She must not take it…she must wait for it to be given to her. "Mmmmm," she moans, deep and throaty at his next pinch.

Her legs jerk with the next pinch and plunge, and Kara lifts her thighs to flank Ral's hips as though she's his puppet on invisible but comfortable strings. This move traps Mon-El's hand between her folds, a fact that both thrills her and frightens her at the same time.

After several minutes of her ears being graced with only the sound of their grunting, rutting, fucking bodies, Mon-El finally speaks. "I've seen him go on like this for hours," he informs her, adding a pinch just to watch her back arch and to hear that delicious moan. "He's famous for keeping his dick hard. I've heard women say Lord Ral can pound you and pound you for so long you'll feel the motion in your clutch for days afterwards. He never would tell me how he managed it."

Lord Ral's pelvis thunks against hers, his cock scraping against her sensitive inner walls in a pace that never wavers, as if to prove her master's words. Her cunt grips at him, muscles working like a starving throat gulping for life-giving sustenance, protesting his departure each time he withdraws. Kara wants him deeper though, but she's at their mercy and can do little more than lift her legs higher against his ribs to seek fulfillment. Finally, she hears his voice rasp above.

"Oh, yeah," he groans before sucking in a shaky breath. "Gods, you feel amazing. She's so hot…and wet," he grunts to her master. "I didn't know women could get this wet."

Lord Ral isn't wrong. She's burning up inside and the arousal pouring from inside is like an accelerant set alight. Her entire pelvis it seems is soaked with it, her thighs smeared with the slippery clear fluid that drips down leaving a wet spot on the coverlet just below the place where their bodies mash together. Her body is a whore that loves its pleasures, of that there can be no doubt.

"Lure's vow!" Ral curses hotly. "You hear that?" he asks, referring to the shockingly crude, wet noises their bodies make as he powers into her. "I want that taste that," he says, the words thick around his tongue, already salivating at the thought. "I want to feel that sweet nectar dripping down my face."

Before she could react or spend words of encouragement, Mon-El cuts her off. "All in good time, brother," he insists authoritatively, leaving no doubt as to who is in charge here. Ral may be the one fucking her, but Mon-El is holding the reins.

"You're so close, aren't you, Pet?" her master demands, turning his attention back to her. He doesn't wait for an answer, but uses his voice to torment her as she hovers on the precipice of her pleasure. "Your legs are shaking, your thighs gripping at him as if you're afraid he might disappear. Your belly is so tight and every part of you is drawing inward as though preparing to implode, and your chest is turning so deliciously pink. You're like a supernova," he tells her, pinching her once more.

So hard is the pinch this time, stifling the noise that comes from her chest is impossible. Kara's mouth opens wide, her neck arching as she shouts, "Aahhh! Fuh-uck!"

Her master laughs, the sounds almost taunting. "There's your voice," he coos coldly. "Now use it the way it's meant to be used…and beg me to let you come."

"Please, Master," she pleads without even the slightest hesitation, after another pinch sends electricity arcing, it seems, from nerve cluster to nerve cluster, radiating through her already hyper-aroused body. Air pants from her lungs in perfect unison with Lord Ral's thrusts. The _thunk-thunk-thunk_ of their clashing pelvises is almost overwhelmed by the obscenely wet, squelching sounds of their fucking. Part of her wants to remove her blindfold and watch as the tool building her pleasure slides in and out of her. But, for now, the sounds taken together, _thunk-thunk-thunk_ and the airy, wet slurp of mixed arousal, only serve to stimulate her more, bringing her nearly to her breaking point. "I can't," she pants, her voice on the whisper's edge of sobbing. "I…please… _oh…oh…oh_ God!"

Mon-El withdraws his hand, yanking it from between the toiling bodies. "Your begging is pathetic," he decides.

"No, please!" she cries when he abandons her. Without his fingers pinching her clit hard and without mercy, she drifts lost in the pleasure of Lord Ral's cock, but without the complement of pain that makes for the most powerful of orgasms. " _Please…Master…please_ ," she whines. Each word is cut off, as if she means to go on, but the impact of Ral's hips in the tight cradle of hers causes her recording to skip.

Kara senses, rather than hears a shift between her two lovers, a non-verbal communication of her master giving instruction. This, he does so well with his eyes. A single flick of his silver-grey eyes and a slight dilation of the pupils will send her to her knees to greedily take his cock into her mouth. It surprises her not one bit that he's practiced this ability on others. She knows only that her master has stopped touching her, withdrawn his voice as well as his hand from her, and the steady pattern of Lord Ral's breathing pattern alters just before his dick comes to a dead stop inside of her.

Ral lowers himself on top of her, their skin touching from chest to privates, her breasts pillowed beneath his slim pectorals. Their bellies, slick with a light layer of perspiration and smeared arousal, fight for the room to expand in the wake of their heavy breathing. His hips jerk and grind before settling, his pubic bone digging into clit. The enforced darkness spins around her, greying around the edges and she comes a hairsbreadth from passing out.

Now more the predator from the garden than the gentle love-maker, he snakes an arm roughly, possessively around her shoulder, her neck resting on his forearm as his hand grips tightly to the curve where her neck and shoulder meet. He takes her mouth roughly, forcing his tongue inside to stake a deeper claim on her. She doesn't resist, but instead she melts into him, as if their skins will disintegrate and mold them into one being.

Kara can't help but feel as if she should be bracing for something. Unfulfilled by simply the feeling of being filled, her hands travel down his ribcage to his waist to grasp his butt cheeks, rock-hard flesh beneath her fingertips, held taut through the sheer force of his sexual endurance.

But suddenly her master's strong hands grab her wrists and pull them away from Ral, pinning them to the mattress above her head. They surround her, hold her down, render her completely powerless and the knowledge of it makes her want to weep with joy.

As though receiving the thumbs-up, Ral begins moving again, but this time it's no slow-and-steady-wins-the-race pace he sets. This time he pulls out only so far as he must before pushing back in. It's no more than a moment, a few quick breaths, before he's jack-hammering into her. Though she appreciates the benefit of the blindfold, the new perspective it gives her, Kara would give anything to see the reflection above them. But she cannot and so in her mind's eye she conjures an image of Ral's toned glutes bunching and releasing with each ruthless thrust of his cock into her wet heat, every lean muscle in his body working at peak condition.

He pummels with more than enough force to displace her body, if not for the hand at the curve of her neck holding her in place with bruising effort. "Please…" she begs, barely able to hold onto a single breath. With each assault of his hips, the breath her lungs inhale no sooner enters, then is forced from her body.

She needs to come so badly, the pressure so dangerously high, she fears what might happen if she is denied her release. "Please," she wheezes, her voice barely a whisper, and shaking in time to Ral's hammering hips. "Please let me come."

"Tell me, Kryptonian," her master's voice commands, coolly. "Do you enjoy servicing my bond-brother?" he asks, his tone indicating that her answer is compulsory and that he had better like it. His hands tighten around her wrist, hard enough to compromise the circulation there.

Kara's mind, scattered by pleasure and desire that waits in the wings unfulfilled, searches for an answer. "His demands are your demands, Master," she settles upon the diplomatic. "What pleases him…pleases you."

"Yes…but do _you_ enjoy it when he fucks you?"

Her body has already betrayed any lie she could hope to tell a dozen times by now, probably more. So she decides not to. "Yes," she pants, her tongue tasting the salt of sweat on her upper lip. "Yes."

"You wouldn't lie to me because you think that's what you think I want to hear?"

"No," she shakes her head. "No, Master."

He releases her wrists from his captivity, but before he can pull away Kara turns it back around on him, grabbing blindly for him and pulling him back to her. Allowing her this indulgence, he holds her arms down again, his thumbs brushing the bulging tendons and veins on the underside of the joint. "Then perhaps you should show him how much you enjoy his tender ministrations," Mon-El supplies.

More even than her brain recognizes the words, her trained body – a body awakened to pleasure – recognizes the tone in his voice. The tone that sparks her climax.

Her body turns to chaos. Electricity shoots through her, muscles clamp while others release, and her voice howls her completion as her hands grip for his ribcage and lower back, even as he pulls away from her. He leaves her alone in her pleasure; by definition, unfulfilled, despite the breathtaking agony of her rapture.

"Morgon?" she whines, as her pussy ripples and clamps around the void he left. She misses even just the heat of him, as he abandons her, spread wide on the bed, her thighs shiny and wet with the slick fluid of her arousal, her belly and chest beaded with mists of perspiration.

Kara's extremities still quiver when she's rolled to her stomach and then four hands maneuver her to all-fours. When Lord Ral shifts behind her, positioning his head between her thighs and going in for the taste of her that Mon-El had promised him, her breath comes hard and fast. His mouth engulfs her folds, tongue swirling around the exposed live wire of her clit, the curls on his head tickling her belly while the tighter, coarser curls of his beard stimulate her enflamed labia. His hands, massaging the round cheeks of her ass, guide her hips downwards, her knees spreading out until she's practically sitting on Lord Ral's face.

Then, as if by magic, her mind still whirling from her climax and the sudden change of situation, her master is suddenly beneath her, cupping the back of her head with his large hand and urging her downward. The hot tip of his rod butts against her lips, circling its salty wetness around her mouth like an absurd application of lipstick. Though she attempts to take him inside, a rough grip on the hair at the back of her scalp holds her in place. When she reaches to take him in hand, he slaps her away, none too gently.

Around and around he traces her lips with the bulbous head of his cock, glazing their kiss-swollen tenderness with his pre-cum. She snakes her tongue out to catch the sensitive underside of his shaft, satisfied to hear his restrained groan when she blindly hits the right spot.

Lord Ral's mouth moves on her in a slow feasting motion as though he's devouring the juiciest fruit Daxam has to offer and wishes to savor every nuance of flavor. He seems in no hurry to reach his conclusion, but only to prime her for her next implosion, as his hands travel the topography of her body. Exploring from the front of her thighs to her ribcage, around to her spine, and returning to her backside to hold her in place in those moments when she shies away from the pleasure.

Finally, her master presses down, his cock invading her mouth on his terms, both hands on her head now, controlling the up-down motion and the depth of penetration. All she can control is the strength of her suction and the dexterity of her tongue, trusting her knowledge of what she knows he likes to pleasure him.

"Bring her to pleasure once," he says to Ral, "and she'll do anything you want after that. That's it," he encourages, pressing down further so that she takes more of him.

"Mmmmph," intones Lord Ral, his tones expressing ecstatic satisfaction in the taste he finds between her legs.

Her jaw aches, forced to capacity by her master's size, the length of him reaching all the way to the back of her throat, with still fully half of his cock exposed. Her nose is nowhere near the nest of curls at the root of his stem and so she knows there's still more to take. She'll choke on him if he forces her to accept more, and so she sucks harder, hoping that this tactic will distract him. As his glans bumps against her tonsils over and over, her eyes water beneath the blindfold. Kara presses her tongue more aggressively against the prominent vein that pumps wildly on the underside of his dick.

Suddenly there's a yank and his cock is no longer in her mouth, a string of saliva spilling forth in its wake. "Not so hard, Kryptonian," he says, a note of warning in his voice. "You don't want this to be over so soon, do you? Too soon and my cum goes in your stomach. That's not where you want my cum, is it?"

"If it's where _you_ want your cum, Master," she relies, her voice raspy and ill-used to her own ears.

"Where do you prefer my cum, Kryptonian?"

"My pussy, Master," Kara answers. Snaking out, her tongue attempts to rein in some of the saliva her mouth produced when he was deep in her throat. She wipes a palm over her chin hoping that this makes her more presentable, and opens her mouth to take him in again. His tight grip on her thick, golden tresses yanks her back.

He chuckles, like a chess master who's seen twelve moves ahead and already knows how the game is won. "If you want more of that cock, you'll have to beg for it."

He wants her to beg, loves the sound of it, and knowing it will please him, she complies, first banking the tension by biting her lower lip as though indecisive. She will beg, of course, but it's fun for neither of them if she capitulates too quickly. Sensing the loosening of his grip, Kara swiftly dips down for another attempt, but his reaction is swifter and deliciously brutal. Yanking her head back with one hand, he grabs her chin roughly with the other. "What did I say?"

Suddenly Lord Ral shoves two fingers into her dripping entrance and Kara's brain short-circuits for a moment in response. As Ral fucks her savagely with his fingers, easily locating that rough jewel of nerve tissue within her passage, Kara's body reacts as the preparing to be slammed by an immovable force. No more than a few breaths away from implosion, her head tilts back mouth open wide. She doesn't wish to be empty when her next orgasm strikes, and so upon her next breath she manages to marshal a few words.

"Please, Master," Kara begs breathily, her voice little more than a moan. "May I suck your cock? Please, Master…let me worship it. Let me show you how much your cock means to me."

This game they play: he demands and she capitulates, he dominates and she submits. The result is always the same, the destination set, both eventually finding what they need; but the road traveled is best if peppered with unpredictable twists and turns. And so sometimes he is gentle, and on occasion she makes a show of resisting. It's the push-pull, and knowing which role they must play at any given moment, of trusting the other to read their requirements at just the right moment, that makes it so intensely satisfying.

"Good girl," he coos surprisingly, guiding her back to his hard length of steel. His hands slip away from her head, allowing her to take the lead as they root for her breasts, cupping and squeezing the dangling playthings much to her delight.

Dragging her mouth up and down over his primed cock, she moves faster and faster in time with the thrusts of Lord Ral's fingers. "Mmmm…. mmmm…mmmm," she purrs like a meticulously maintained high-octane engine. Kara loves how her blindness brings her other senses to the forefront, intensifies the taste of him in her mouth, or the feel Lord Ral's soft, springy curls tickling her belly just below her navel, but she misses being able to gaze into Mon-El's silver-gray eyes while giving him a blowjob. She misses the intimacy of eye contact.

When finally, the building swell crests, Kara screams over his cock, allowing him to share her pleasure, if only in the tiniest way. He groans in response, his hips thrusting up to take over fucking her mouth. Lord Ral's tongue laps at her folds, drinking the rivers of fluid her climax has wrought.

Every pore, every nerve ending ablaze, her skin threatens to fly to pieces and float away like embers crackling off a raging fire. Kara shakes and shivers, the arms holding her up on the very edge of collapse. Behind her, Lord Ral shifts again, placing his hands on her hips, at first to support her and then, to pull her back onto his cock in one single, smooth thrust.

"Meeeeph!" she squeals ecstatically when he begins pumping into her steadily. Kara continues her blowjob, hollowing her cheeks as she works Mon-El's silk and steel cock, paying careful attention to all of its sensitive spots.

Lord Ral pumps his hips enthusiastically, colliding with her backside with enough force to cause the tight, toned flesh to jiggle. In this position, Kara's cunt opening up to his invasion as he drives slightly upwards into her scorching heat, it feels like his cock is deep enough to touch her heart.

In a sudden shift that happens almost faster than she can process it, Lord Ral pulls out while Mon-El simultaneously puts a stop to the blowjob. Two sets of hands maneuver her into Mon-El's lap and the next thing Kara knows, she's sliding down his wet cock until he bottoms out, their pelvises coming together like that last two pieces of an impossible puzzle. "Yeah," she mewls, as he fills her up completely, stretching her wide.

"You like that?" he asks, hips bucking upward, while his hands on her thighs hold her down. "You like my cock inside you?" he bucks again, holding her immobile, his fingers on her thigh employing a satisfyingly bruising force. "Yeah," he answers his own query, as she seems momentarily incapable, with another punishing upward thrust. "You love that."

"I love it," she pants in agreement. Unable to see him, to gaze into his eyes, she drops her head back, giving herself to the world of sensual indulgence. Lord Ral, behind her on his knees, his dewy rod pressing against the seam of her butt cheeks, snakes his hands around to cup her breasts. His face dives into the curve of Kara's neck to plant open-mouthed kisses to every part of skin he can reach. "I love it," she sighs.

He plasters his chest to her back, tweaking her painfully aroused nipples; twisting them and flicking them mercilessly. "You like that, too?" Ral teases, his voice in her ear like silk on naked skin. A pulse of molten heat blooms in her pussy, with each pluck and flick of his fingers. She can feel him smiling against her cheek; feel his hot breath on her.

"I love it," she says, talking about more than just Mon-El's cock slamming into her depths. But all of it. The hedonism he's awakened inside of her, this life without the arbitrary and puritanical sexual boundaries of both Krypton and Earth, and the freedom through bondage he's given her.

"Such a slut for my cock," Mon-El says, though his voice is full of praise and not censure. She can hear him smiling, and she smiles in response. With a smack, his hand slaps her flank high on her hip, the resulting sting awakening more nerve endings in her skin there, heightening the pleasure when he follows the slap with a soothing caress. "Gods, that pussy is so hungry for it."

And it's true. When he tries to pull out, her channel resists, grasping instinctually for him with every muscle. It is an evolutionary act over which she has no control; her body's primal need to breed, to grow life inside of her womb. "Mmmm…hungry," she agrees, licking her lips. They grow dry from exertion while other parts of her grow only wetter. "Hungry for your cum," she rasps. "Will you give me your cum, Master? Please?" Kara paws at his belly just above where they're bodies are joined, like a kitten paws at its mother's nipple coaxing forth life-giving milk.

"We won't leave you wanting this time, sunshine," Lord Ral promises, an arousing whisper in her ear. Suddenly, his hand is urging her forward, while simultaneously Mon-El draws her down to him, his mouth reaching up to take one dusky pink nipple into his mouth. She grips tightly at the furs beside his head, attempting to rock her hips against his but finding the two sets of hands at her waist and backside to be too much to overcome. She's locked down.

"Ahhhh," she sighs. Mon-El stops moving inside her, leaving her only with urgent fullness and none of the friction or force that brings her such bliss. But his hot mouth draws upon her breast with a force that makes her squirm with hunger.

"Be still now," Ral commands, his hands massaging the taut globes of her rear end for a moment before spreading them wide. Working in tandem, Mon-El's hands reach for Kara's cheeks, holding them open for Ral, so that his hands can find greater leverage, one hand gripping her waist while another slides up her back to cup tightly over her shoulder.

Maybe it's the way she feels as if she's floating above herself, or maybe it is simply that her mind isn't quite able to put pieces together with the gripping hands, the suckling mouth and the hot whispers on her skin, but it never occurs to her what is about to happen until she feels the blunt end of a cock at the puckered rim leading to her dark recesses.

"Rao!" she groans, but doesn't mount a protest. She can't. She wouldn't.

Her master stretches her so deliciously and fills her so completely, she doesn't see how she can possibly take more. But it was only a few hours before that Lord Ral was initiating her in the Old Palace Gardens, expanding her sexual horizons…as well as that taut barrier, using his body to dominate hers as he fucked her quite thoroughly.

This wasn't something she's ever thought about for herself, much less fantasized about – sharing her body with more than one person. She's always been the loyal sort, or at least that's how she prefers to think of herself, and so could never imagine anything like this. Not until she came here, at any rate. That long night in the chancel had changed things though, showing her new things as she observed the salacious goings-on around them, even as she and Mon-El both proved their mastery over one another's bodies.

The Lady Yar and Lord-Adjutant Mos, with her handsome concubinus, and the pleasure on the lady's face as both men moved within her, has sprung to Kara's mind many times since. It taunts her like a regular and ravenous craving demanding to be satiated.

But Kara would never have asked. Never would have risked seeing Mon-El's eyes fill with hurt and betrayal – not again. And she never would have risked confessing her interest, only to be met with that look of ennui in his eyes, as if her Kryptonian sexual inferiority was both a bore and a burden at the same time.

Kara could not have felt more vulnerable as Ral presses inside of her. At first, it seems, he wants to be gentle, attempting to work open the entrance of her rear passage with the slick, broad head of his cock, as one might toil overlong at the knot of drawstring purse. But then, as if giving up on the notion, his hands on her skin grip with bruising strength and suddenly he's forcing his way inside, just as he did in the gardens.

Flinching at the sharp sensations, a shriek emerges as he tears into her, her anal rim seemingly tighter now thanks in part to the pulsing tool waiting patiently in the hot cavern of her cunt. "Oh, fuck!" she cries, as Ral invades deeper, her body stiffening in response.

"Relax," her master orders, his tone authoritative and not to be questioned or denied. Kara forces herself to do as he bids, but he doesn't make it easy, fisting the taut flesh of her ass with his strong fingers and biting down hard on one of her nipples.

With Mon-El inside of her, stretching her pussy to its limits, little space remains in which Lord Ral can wedge his own considerable phallus. Clearly though, that's not about to stop him from taking her, from making his mark on her. His near-animal grunts of determination coupled with the ferocity of his hands on her skin speak of his passionate, possibly even desperate, need to make himself a part of her. Mark her indelibly.

When he's buried as deep as he can go, his balls pressed into the crevice of her bottom, Ral's hips jerk like he's been electrocuted, his back arching and hands gripping more tightly as he lets loose a long, groan of intense satisfaction. "Gods! I have found Paradise," he sighs afterwards.

She would breathe her relief if she could; if she weren't sandwiched between two powerful bodies and if there was even a scintilla of relief to be found. But she can't, because there is none to be had. So full of them, and overwhelmed by the sensation of their planned invasion, Kara can merely pant in shallow, racing breaths.

The room – the world – tilts and suddenly all three of them are on their sides, Mon-El hiking her leg over his hip as he withdraws from her wet heat and then thrusts back, his pubic bone grinding against her. With practiced timing, Ral too withdraws the very second that Mon-El's pelvis smacks against hers, and slams back in. United, they storm her defenses, besieging her body and all its senses with every weapon they have. Her master leans down and sucks a nipple back into her mouth, while Ral fists her hair in one of his hands and yanks her head back far enough for his mouth to cover hers, his tongue dancing with hers.

At first, Kara tries to ride the storm, to participate fully in her own surrender, by wrapping one arm around Mon-El's back, tearing at it with clawed fingers. His own back arches, sending him deeper into her heat, abdominals molding against hers as his hand replaces his mouth on her breast, his fingertips leaving oval bruises as he cups the tender flesh. The thrust of his pelvis, cock hammering into her, lets up not even the tiniest bit. With the effort, he bites down on his lower lip, hard enough to whiten the skin around his mouth – nearly hard enough to draw blood.

Her other hand snakes up the bed's comforter and behind her until she's able to grasp at the man plunging over and over into her ass. Her grip isn't strong though, mostly a blind grope, perhaps for purchase or perhaps to tell him know that she's in this. All in.

Possibly sensing that Kara clings too tightly to her own control, the men shift their tactic, communicating with each other non-verbally, on a level of which only they are capable. Ral pulls back and waits, the length of a heartbeat, of a deep breath, only plunging back into her dark hole when he can match Mon-El's own thrusts. Together, they fill her so completely their ravishment of her rides the edge of too painful. Working in tandem, their cocks stretch and pound her until complete surrender is her only remaining option.

Complete and total submission.

Every part of her body opens to them, her deep, visceral groans escalating in pitch with each dual-thrust until she's shrieking, louder and with barely a breath in between. Body limp against their assault, sandwiched between the two men, they alter the tempo of their mutual thrusts. Ral goes slow, but long and deep, as he alternates between sucking on her neck and shoulder, one hand cupping and squeezing her breast. Mon-El's cock stops moving inside of her at first, before beginning a series of short, precise pulses that seem to send conflicting messages straight to her pleasure center. The blindfold around her eyes disappears as Mon-El tears it away. He wants to look into her eyes, to see her surrender there, but finds her lids barring his view of her comet-blue irises. Grabbing her chin, he gives her head a shake until her pupil-blown eyes open as if by enormous effort.

"Look at me," he demands, pelvis grinding against hers in a way that promises to kill her with ecstasy.

No choice but to comply, Kara opens her eyes, only now consciously realizing she had them closed and wonders how long she had been floating on the cloud of physical sensation. His grey eyes are nearly black, pupils blown so wide that all that can be seen is the thinnest ring of silver-grey around the edges. Kara struggles with the effort of holding her eyes open, as her lovers take everything she offers. "Yes, Master," she moans, her teeth chattering.

He grabs her chin, holding her steady as he ravages her mouth with his, tongue licking and tasting every texture inside.

The intense, excruciating pleasure with which they bombard her builds within, like arcing electricity that grows stronger as it bounces along its path. She offers the pleasure no resistance as it moves within her, heating her skin as though she burns from the inside, constricting her lungs and the muscles of her belly, her body seeking the ultimate fulfillment.

The short pulses of Mon-El's cock are killing her, sending her to the all-too-brief afterlife he built for her brick by brick since the evening he took her virginity.

She sees him there, in the dark mirror of his dilated eyes. Not the hard-edged Prince of Daxam he's worn like a mask; but Mon-El, the lover who always gives her what she needs, even when she isn't sure what that may be, or how it may manifest. In his eyes Kara sees the refugee from a destroyed homeworld who wants only to find his place but is too afraid to ask if that's her. Too afraid to ask more of her lest she squirm beneath the weight of his emotional and physical needs.

It's a weight she will wholeheartedly accept but, Kara realizes, he has no way of knowing that. How could he? Since that first night in her apartment, Mon-El has been the caretaker of her physical awakening. Pruning it carefully, methodically, and never pushing her farther than she wanted to go. As if he were an expert gardener, her sexuality has bloomed in response to his passionate and unselfish attentions.

And what has she given him in return? How has she served _his_ needs?

His skill for sex is unquestionable but the deeper they explore her needs and her sexuality the farther afield they drift from the yearning pit of his greatest hunger. Perhaps, in the heat and sweat of it all, Kara thought, like most men, that Mon-El would find his satisfaction in the physical affection their relationship provided him. But that was before her sojourn into the heart of his darkness.

Now she sees the truth of it.

His hand glides along her sweat-slickened skin, his hot breath warring with her hers as the speed of his thrusting hips increases. Finally, he speaks, in barely a whisper, the word her body has been waiting for – slowly dying for.

"Come."

She shatters, though at first it feels like the entire world contracts around her and in her. Her every muscles acts in concert, as though conspiring to draw her lovers into her and lock them within. The convulsive jerks of her muscles, both inner and outer, seem to go on and on, just like their rough thrusts, as though threatening to torment her with never ending bliss. Until finally, breathless, with little left inside of her but the strength to whine and mewl, her body goes limp against their duel assault.

Both men find their completion in unison, spilling their searing, seeking seed into her as her tongue snakes out to moisten her dry lips.

What follows is a preternatural stillness broken only by the sound of great gulping gasps of air tearing in and out of the three sets of lungs. Their bodies melt into one another, Ral and Mon-El curving around her as though creating a protective shell. Despite the stillness of their exhausted forms, Kara can still feel the movement, the rocking collisions of two hard bodies dominating hers, as though their actions have bequeathed a tangible echo in her skin. She clings to the feeling, like the memory of her mother's last words to her.

Lazily, as though it takes Supergirl-strength, Kara lifts her eyelids once more to find his gray eyes gazing back at her, surprised to catch a flicker of warmth amidst the steely frigidity he's mastered when it comes to her.

And then something happens. Unexpectedly caught with his guard down, his mask more than a little off-center, his eyes blink and shutter. Kara watches in slow motion as he withdraws from her, his mask slipping into place. She knows, in her heart of hearts, that her time for truth and revelation is now and that there may never again be a moment as opportune as this one. She can no longer afford to take from him what he freely offers, without feeding his own hunger in return.

Placing her hand on his cheek, her eyes catch his once more, before the warmth can disappear completely behind a shield of coldness. "I love you," she says, firmly and confidently.

Mon-El closes his eyes, the lids crinkling in and almost grimace, but she stands her ground.

"I love you," she repeats.

"You don't know what you're saying," he replies, his voice little more than a rasp.

Hand departing his cheek, she reaches for Ral's hand, perched on Mon-El's hip, and draws it between their bodies and places his palm against her chest. "I love both of you."

Mon-El's eyes snap open and widen, his mouth opens to speak, but seemingly struck dumb, no words pour forth.

Kara figures she should take full advantage of the opportunity while it lasts. "I love _all_ of you," she adds. "All the parts of you…even the ones you try to keep hidden." Without taking her eyes from Mon-El's, she lifts Ral's hand to her mouth and leaves a lingering kiss on the palm. "And I promise you…in this place…I won't hide from you, if you won't hide from me."

And then there's a flicker, and then another – like a fluorescent bulb right before it finally sparks, as though it needed a good priming before committing itself to providing illumination. When the light does come, it's blinding and burning and it fills the entire room, like Kara's been plunged forcibly into an ocean of white that begins to fade almost as soon as it reaches its zenith.

When it does fade, the first thing Kara notices is that Morgon Ral is gone. The second thing she notices is that the warmth has returned to Mon-El's eyes and the rigid set of his shoulders that he's managed to maintain, even during their most raucous sex, is now gone. Also absent is the coldness that's greeted her at every turn since agreeing to his challenge. Instead there's only warmth, and a softness that tears at the last chunks of the walls she erected around her heart long ago. Walls constructed before ever laying eyes on his face, before donning the cape, and even before reaching adulthood. Without even realizing it, Mon-El tore at the bricks she began to lay when she first began to equate love with loss – and death. At last, she sees her Mon-El there. All of him. Returned to her.

A bright grin spreads across her face and her eyes fill with tears of joy.


	20. Chapter 20

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 20/?

"How did you know?" he queries, his voice tinged with awe.

"Because I loved him," she answers truthfully. "And even though it didn't change the way I felt about you one little bit, I could feel something missing from you. A piece of you that you…cut out."

Eyebrows raised as he considers her words, Mon-El rolls onto his back taking her with him. Kara tucks her cooling body firmly against his side, her fingers finding the tuffs of course brown hair in the center of his chest and toying idly with them as she places a succession of kisses on his pectoral.

"I sensed something from the beginning, I think," she continues. "I couldn't quite put my finger on it though. At least, not until we were together in the memories and you were showing me the truth about your origins. Suddenly I just knew…he was more than just the avatar of someone that you lost. He was the missing part of _you_."

"It wasn't just Ral," he confesses.

Kara's eyes widen, her mind racing to put the final pieces to the puzzle in place, when the inspiration strikes her like lightening. The cleaning, the massages and all the soft encouragement. "Brana," she realizes.

"She was the part of me that needed to heal the damage I'd done to you. Ral could only do so much, but Brana had full access."

"Yes, I see now."

"I love you too," he says, after a long moment of silence. Because he feels it, and not because it's what he's supposed to say. He doesn't want her to think that.

"I know," she smiles wistfully. "You worked too hard to push me away," Kara explains. "It's pretty obvious." Her smile slips from her face, "A few times you gave me reason to doubt, of course."

Remembering the way she curled into herself on this very bed, weeping as a towel covered her head, or how roughly he had used her the following morning to assuage his own need. He had wondered if he'd finally broken her, the darkest part of him hoping he had so that she would flee this place and the taint it might leave upon her. His hand goes to her throat, clasping her collar and with a click and a recitation of the familiar code phrase her bonds fall away. "I'm sorry," he says, tossing the collar across the room, "for trying to make you think I didn't care. Even without those parts of me, I had to fight to push my love down deep."

"No, I'm the only one who should be sorry. For what I did to you – how I betrayed you. I was convinced to go against my better judgement, to go against you and for that…there aren't enough words for how sorry I feel. I was wrong."

"I was falling apart," he admits, to himself as much as to her. "The fact that we're stuck here is proof of that."

"Do you remember now…what happened?" she wonders, tilting her chin to look up at him. To study his beautiful face, void of the severity he cloaked himself in before.

"I remember the shackles and glass breaking and bright red lights shining in my eyes. And anger. So much anger."

"The lights weren't in your eyes, baby. They were coming from your eyes."

"I don't understand."

"The theory is that you've been suppressing your powers…along with most of your emotions about losing your home."

"My powers?" he sighs, shaking his head. "You've lost me."

Kara sits up, leaning over him. "Remember when we talked about how my powers didn't come all at once when I arrived on Earth?"

How could he forget? It had been their first night together. She had explained some of the history of her power in a nervous ramble as she had watched him disrobe, piece by piece. "I remember," he smirks, recalling how her hands had shaken as she watched him.

"Some of my powers are just there. Strength, speed, invulnerability, x-ray vision – they're…passive, like they've always been there. But others are deeply tied to my emotions. Flight is tied to fear, just like humans. Heat vision to anger and, as weird as it sounds, arctic breath is tied to surprise. Should have seen how I discovered that one." Kara covers her eyes with one hand and purses her lips. "So embarrassing," she intones with a shake of her head. "Before I learned to control it, my super hearing would kick in whenever I was most stressed or overwhelmed. Inevitably making it worse…."

Kara settles back into his embrace again, tucking her forehead into the warm crook of his neck. "Anyway, my point is that, since your arrival, you've done just about everything possible to avoid dealing with your loss. You've suppressed everything that has anything to do with the destruction of Daxam and…the death of Morgon. Can't say I really blame you," Kara murmurs, vividly recalling his memory of how Ral died, as though she had lived it herself.

"And by suppressing my emotions…."

"You suppressed your emergent powers," she confirms. "Which got suddenly _un_ suppressed in the DEO when you couldn't lie to yourself anymore. You were teetering on the edge and I just…tipped you over."

"Heat vision?" he wonders aloud, suddenly viewing those hazy memories through a new filter. As if in the distance, he can hear glass shattering and people screaming. "How bad was it? Did I…hurt anyone?" he asks, his throat dry, air constricting in his lungs.

"No. A couple of injuries from people diving out of the way, but nothing that couldn't be patched up," she informs him. Slowly, Mon-El releases the breath he had been holding.

"My heat vision is red and not white?"

"Winn thinks it's a few hundred degrees cooler than mine," Kara explains.

Mon-El sighs. "Not as strong as you, not as fast as you, not as hot as you. Do you think it's because I'm…because I'm a…?" He can't bring himself to say the word aloud.

"No," she whispers, feeling a pang of sadness on his behalf, and refusing to believe that his genetics are the reason behind his differences. Living with the knowledge that he is the clone of a man he despised had clearly damaged his already battered self-esteem, a problem not improved by stacking his powers against hers and comparing the two. But then she remembers there's more and sits up again, this time with a blinding grin on her face. "You floated!"

He tilts his head, soaking in the happiness she projects at him, but not quite understanding where she's found this font of joy. "Yea," he deadpans, "I floated."

Rolling her eyes at his underplayed echo of her excitement, Kara smacks him on the arm. "Just listen." Kara goes on to tell him of Cisco's and Winn's joint theory of his ability to create anti-gravitational fields and the potential of allowing others to fly with him. "I can't do that," she offers, as though extending an olive branch.

"Cool," he juts out his chin with just a hint of pride.

"For obvious reasons, Winn wants you to master this ability post-haste."

"I guess he's offering to be my test subject."

"Just keep him no more than three feet off the ground. He's breakable."

"Understood."

"And then there's electricity," Kara points out. "You can absorb it and store it as energy. Electricity is dangerous to me."

"I see what you're trying to do."

"Is it working?"

"Yeah…a little."

"I'm glad," she smiles. After a brief silence, in which Mon-El could practically hear the wheels turning in her Kara's brain, she spoke again. "How long were you hallucinating him?" she wonders.

Glancing away from her, his breath rushes out in a sigh, as though relieved that the truth is now coming out. "Almost since the beginning. I knew he was gone, that he was dead. I think…my mind tried to make his death something…palatable…something noble. Something worthy of him. I admit that. But it's not like I believed he was real, Kara."

"I think you would have tried to introduce us if you'd thought he was real."

"You weren't ready for a threesome yet," he jokes. He chuckles, but the sound is dry and unconvincing, even to his own ears. "I think the split started then – he was always the romantic, not me. I never had reason to be. Without him, I'm sure I would have messed this…us…up. I don't have the first clue how to be in a relationship."

"Neither do I," she echoes. "But I'm not about to give up just because it got complicated."

"It's a good thing one of us is stubborn," he says. Then, after a moment's silence he redirects, "I'm sure I'm going to eat those words one day."

"Undoubtedly," she chuckles, caressing his chest over his heart. "Where's a voice recorder when you need one?"

"I felt so alone, Kara."

"I know," she whispers, recalling keenly the vast pit of loneliness she felt in the initial months following her arrival on Earth. "But you're not alone anymore. You have a new family now."

"Like Alex?" he wonders, sardonically.

"Don't be angry with her, Mon-El, please? She really did have your best interest at heart. She's a doctor who doesn't specialize in psychiatry; she only wanted to keep us safe and find a way to help you."

"It's hard to be mad at her, when it turned out she was right. It's only dumb luck no one was killed."

"Well, I might have had something to do with it."

"Grife!" he curses. "What if you hadn't been there? What if it had happened on the streets or at the bar? There's no telling how many people could have been killed."

"Eliza had the same thought. But it didn't happen, and no one was seriously injured. I don't want you to dwell on what's in the past. I just want us to move forward."

"What's in the past," he echoes, distractedly. Mon-El squeezes his eyes shut and chuckles. "Dwell on the past!" he manages to roll away from her a sit up on the edge of the bed.

"I don't understand," she says. "Is something funny?"

Mon-El dampens his laughter enough to speak. "Dwelling on my past…that's exactly what I've been doing."

"Yes, I can see that. We were afraid that you might be trapped here, unable to find your way out, which is why we built a back door into the system to show you the way. Now that you're…you…I'm sure we can leave whenever you like."

"That's just it, Kara. I can't leave."

"What do you mean?"

"There's something I'm supposed to remember…or figure out, or…I don't know."

"Like what?"

"I forgot!" Off the deadpan look of silent incredulity in her eyes, Mon-El holds up his hands. "Don't look at me like that! Don't you think I already feel like an idiot?"

"What's this all about?" she queries, patting the mattress in front of her.

As instructed, he collapses in defeat back onto the edge of the bed. "The promise I made to Ral, just before he died. That I would restore what Daxam destroyed."

"On that…." Kara gulps, searching for the best way to couch her words. "On that last day…in the cell…Ral told you to find Jor-El of Krypton."

Mon-El sits up on the bed, resting his elbows on his knees. "You saw it all, didn't you? You saw that he had lost a lot of blood, and they had tortured him for days."

"He seemed pretty lucid to me."

"This Jor-El," Mon-El ponders. "He was in your House. Did you know him?"

"My uncle," she nods. "Kal's father."

"Who was he?" Mon-El asks, wondering what the man could have possibly known. "What was he like?"

"He was a scientist. He was always busy, not much for pleasantries, but he liked to hear himself talk."

"Kryptonian," Mon-El rolls his eyes and chuckles.

"Not in that way," Kara denies, "though I suppose he could be as arrogant as any of us. No, what I meant was…that he liked to talk things out, formulate hypotheses, out loud. It helped him think, he said. I visited often when my Aunt Lara was pregnant with Kal, always fascinated by the way her body was changing, and I grew accustomed to being his sounding board in those last few months. I think he imagined that if I could understand his ideas then surely the High Council could grasp the concepts as well. Granted…I understood very little of what he said, not knowing the full truth – the desperation – of our situation then. In hindsight, Uncle Jor must have known, of course…that Krypton was doomed. He would have been called upon to seek solutions and so the pressure he must have been under had to have been enormous. It was Jor's idea to send Kal to Earth, and me…to protect him."

"What could he possibly have known?" Mon-El posits under his breath. "What could Ral have discovered about him?"

"Not to make you feel worse, but how can you restore something that's been gone for decades? You're what's left of Daxam, Mon-El. You're its legacy, and you've chosen to become a hero. How could you possibly honor Ral more than that?"

"I don't know," he replies, exasperated. "I just know there's something I'm missing."

"How are you supposed to find it in here?"

"It's something from my childhood. A moment," he says. "A glimpse at something I left unfinished. It began the day Ral and I snuck up to The Forbidden, I know that much." Briefly, he explains about the series of apartments on the top floors of Daxam's Capital City palace.

"The apartment where I landed when I first arrived," she recalls. "You were both there, very intent on reading something."

"The letters," he mumbles. "There was something in the letters. Must have been."

"Let me help you," she pleads. "If we figure this out then you can go home."

"In theory," he qualifies, unwilling to bolster her hopes in case he's permanently trapped here.

"I have faith," Kara counters, tilting her head and placing a gentle reminder kiss on his lips. "And faith has gotten me this far. Where do we begin?"

"Getting out of bed," he replies, smiling at Kara's delicious pout. "We have to go to The Forbidden."

Moments later, as they're traversing the maze of hallways and stairs that comprise the palace pyramid, Kara notices that Mon-El's newfound awareness and focus, owing to the reunion of his rampant Super-ego and his heavily repressed Id, have wrought changes in the landscape. Colors have faded, and the background players seem to take on an automaton-like quality, void of emotion or life, stripped of their mandate to present an immersive alternate reality.

"It is seriously creepy," Kara comments under her breath, noting that a passing Adept seems to look right through her, rather than grace either of them with the customary come-hither glance.

"It was like this before," he says, taking her hand and pulling her along, up another flight of stairs. "Before you came. You brought the life to this place, Kara. Made it less lonely. They talk, they speak if spoken to, they follow their script, but there's no comfort or true companionship."

"My presence split you in two," she surmises. "Allowing this world to become more real."

"Not entirely. It was the split that drove me to this place," he shakes his head, pointing out. "Even before you came, Ral was the only thing about this place that felt real."

"Because he was you."

"Because he was me. But it was more than that. I think my mind was so threatened by your presence, by what you might see…by what you might think of what you'd see…that I just fractured completely. The part of me that held onto Ral as a figment, just let go." Mon-El pauses, his mind searching for a way to explain the inexplicable. "I don't even know how it happened. I just know that I felt as though a weight had been lifted from me. That the part of me that ached for you, was desperate to leave this place…was gone. And Ral was there…as clear as my memories of him, leading me into trouble just like always, as if the script had been tossed out the window. At first, the missing parts of me felt like a blessing – a relief – even though I didn't understand it. But after sitting with that void for a while, I began to realize that Ral's sudden animation was more than just a coincidence. That he was more than just a particularly vibrant memory."

"It was a defense mechanism," Kara concludes.

"It was a survival mechanism," he counters. "I gave up on leaving this place long before you arrived, and I could feel myself going mad. I think it was my mind's way of keeping me sane for as long as possible."

"If what you say is true, about your mind wanting you to remember something, then driving you insane wouldn't serve its own purpose."

"Exactly. And that's exactly what was happening. So…the deepest parts of my subconscious must have gone into survival mode."

"And split you in two…to keep yourself company."

"But it was like drowning," he says, sadly. "At some point you just let go and it takes you. Eventually it suppressed memories of you, of Earth, and all I remembered was my life here and those horrible hours as it all came tumbling down."

"And memories of finding and reading those letters?"

"Right."

"So, they must mean something."

"It's the best theory I've got right now."

"I hope we're right."

"We are," she says, setting her chin in that determined way of hers. Just the sight of it fills him with a hope he hasn't felt for as long as he can remember.

Though Kara recalls walking the corridors of the palace, when she casts her eyes around the main bedchamber of The Forbidden, she doesn't remember quite how she got there. It's like those lazy mornings when she arrives at CatCo and can't recall whether she walked or flew, only that she's there, grasping a cup of coffee while people bustle all around her. It's a little unsettling.

Even more discomfiting is that when she glances over to look at Mon-El, she's forced to glance downward, at the nine-year old holding her hand.

"What the-?" she breathes, shocked. Has he become the little boy again? Has he forgotten her…like before?

"I'm still me," he hastens to explain, perhaps due to the expression of fear on her face. "But the memories are much clearer when I…go back. In adult form, it's like trying to dredge up a long-lost memory. It's hazier."

"O-okay," she stammers. Kara's heart clenches at the sudden rush of maternal feelings she experiences when looking at this child. And those feelings leave her in a state of confusion. She lets go of his hand, hoping that will help clarify things. "I'm extremely uncomfortable right now," she confesses.

"I'm sorry."

"Let's just do what we came here to do, so that you can…become you again."

"I can't tell you how many times I've been to this room, Kara. I don't know why this time will be any different."

"Show me. How does the memory go?"

"Well, Ral and I duck into the room to avoid being seen by a manservant. We've escaped from Rector Sem's lessons and we'd be in a lot of trouble if we were caught, not just for being in The Forbidden. Anyway, we notice that the room seems as if untouched from the moment it was abandoned." To demonstrate, the youthful Mon-El points out the unmade bed, a formal evening gown draped over a chair, it's matching shoes beneath waiting to be filled by feet, and the puddled dressing gown nearby on the floor.

"We search the room, looking for treasure, at first finding only personal items, but then Morgon notices that the tile beneath that chest is loose." Walking over the corner near the head of the bed, Mon-El toes at a tile, until they hear it clunk. "He helps me pry it up."

As if to fulfill Morgon's role in the memory, Kara follows him and drops to her knees, helping him lift the heavy tile made of red Daxam clay. It's surprisingly hefty for her, so unaccustomed to struggling with such things, Kara grunts a little at the effort. Peering down into the hole revealed by the removed tile, all she sees is darkness. Without preamble or warning, Mon_El reaches into the darkness, his arm going shoulder deep, until finally he withdraws.

"And we found this," he announces, holding up his treasure. "It's a level two Coded lockbox," he explains. "It will only open if a set of pre-requisites are met." He places his thumb on a pad, which is met with a gentle whirring sound, that results in a drop of his blood, smearing on the panel. "Namely, it needs a familial DNA match, and the spoken code phrase. Into the fray, unflinching," Mon-El provides. "Family motto," he explains in an aside.

The box slides open easily, as though it hadn't been tucked away in a dark, dusty hole for a hundred years.

"It's strange," he ponders.

"What is?"

"Every time I've been here I'm forced to remember everything for the first time. But now it's like I remember doing it over and over again. Maybe thousands of times, all told. Maybe so many times there isn't a number for it."

"Maybe it's good that you didn't remember," she suggests. Kara's heart goes out the man she loves, imagining his own mind driving him to an answer he couldn't quite grasp, in order to honor the memory of a long-dead brother, and in the process driving him to the brink of insanity.

"Maybe it means this time will be different."

"What's next?" she asks, refocusing him to his task.

"I read the letters. They're old and handwritten, so they were hard to read. Morgon wasn't much help, having no experience reading handwritten documents, but Fa—the king—made sure it was part of my education. He said it was part of diplomacy, but it was probably just another way to torment me."

"Or part of a grander plan," Kara wonders, her faith in Rao – in Rao's purpose for _him_ – coming to the fore. "So…let's read them then," she nods, determined as she reaches in to pull out a handful of intricately folded papers.

"They're love letters," he explains. "That Gata and Trel sent to one another."

It isn't long before Kara stumbles onto a letter that's more purple than prose. Her eyes widen, but she can't tear herself away from the written words that send her heart racing and other parts of her awakening.

"I like to think that my _true_ education began right here," Mon-El smirks, noticing Kara's reaction.

Horrified by this pronouncement, she folds the letter back up and tosses it into box. "No child should be reading things like this!"

"You mistake me, Sunshine. I knew sex, even at this age. It was everywhere – a part of my culture. It was never something that was hidden from children, simply a rite of passage we expected we would make at the proper time and therefore it was a rite to which we eagerly looked forward. Our desire and our fantasies, even as children, weren't something we were taught to feel shame about. It was a natural part of life. I tried to make you see that…feel that."

"You did," she nods, recalling his earliest lessons on pleasure-receiving. "It's just strange to think of children…."

"The adults made it safe of us to learn at every step along the way. And no one, no matter their age was ever made to feel forced. In fact, there was even a place for those who felt sex was not for them. It is…was…called the Order of Raxis; an apolitical, but inclusive group that kept mostly to themselves while farming a commune to the south of Capital City. They weaved the most beautiful tapestries," he recalls.

"You've taught me a lot," she confesses, the tinge of a blush on her cheeks. "I just hope that…."

"What?"

"That none of what I learned here, especially about myself, changes once we leave this place."

Mon-El reaches for her hand. "If I ever get out of this place, I promise to do whatever it takes to make it safe for you. I never want you to think that what you feel, or what you desire, isn't valid."

"And I promise to do the same for you. I want to be what you need, but I'm not always the best at understanding what that is. Be patient with me?"

"Always," he vows, squeezing her hand.

Remembering the stack of letters in her other hand, and the mystery that keeps him trapped here, makes him even more anxious to get home. "In reading these letters, both Morgon and I learned that there could be more to sex than just a pleasurable physical exchange. A person's soul could take part as well. Morgon took it to heart, of course, having had vague memories of his own parent's loving relationship. But I knew, even then, that it would never be my destiny, that to seek love would only end in disappointment."

"Oh, Mon-El…." she sighs sadly.

"Escaping during the Fall…meeting you…changed all that. I understand love now in a way I never could have before."

A much older soul shines out from behind his childish eyes, and seeing him there, if only for a second, Kara's heart skips a beat. She folds the letter in her hands and carefully places it back in the box. "So do I," she whispers.

"But, as interesting as they are, I'm pretty sure we're not here for their love letters." Mon-El pushes the packets of letters around, looking for one in particular until he strikes gold. "Ah...here it is. It seems like every time I was here, the love letters vary and change, cycling through the same two dozen or so – they were quite prolific – but this…this letter is always the same."

Kara takes the letter from him and unfolds the impossibly crisp pages. "What is it?" she asks before setting her eyes to read.

"Proof that neither of our peoples knew the truth about what truly happened to Gata and Trel. Krypton was sold a story, but so was Daxam. I'm just not sure about what it all means. There are parts of it I still don't understand."

Kara's eyes scan the letter, more shocked by the truths it reveals than the deeply personal secrets passed in the previous documents. "They were betrayed," she realizes, holding the pages in her lap as she tries to process only the portion of the letter she's read thus far.

"He writes about the Trinitarians – who were wiped out by my great-grand…King Allic near the end of his reign. But Trel writes that the betrayal came from much deeper within his circle."

"Someone he trusted."

"Kallas Max, Head of Security for the Crown," he points at the letter, further down the page. "The king was deathly ill at the time, and Prince Trel was named the Regent shortly after his marriage to Gata. Kallas Max's placement as head of security gave him ample opportunity, and when Trel's younger brother Allic ascended after the sickly king's death – which was only days after this letter was written – Max became his right hand. Allic had not yet reached the age of consent."

"Motive," Kara infers.

"I believe so. When he died at the age of forty-seven he had earned the moniker of 'Puppet King'. It was a coup. And not from any Kryptonian source, as far as I can tell."

"I'm not so sure," Kara surprises Mon-El, as she flips back to the earlier paragraphs of the letter.

"You think the Kryptonians were behind it?"

"No, of course not. I meant that I'm not entirely sure it was a coup. At least, not at first."

"How can you say that?" he scoffs. "The actions of the Trinitarians damn near brought House Gand to its knees if that letter is to be believed."

"But…I don't think that was their intention."

"What gives you that idea?"

"'She has quartered us in a servant's cloister,' he writes near the end of the letter. 'She warned that it might be hours before she returns to sneak us from this place. While my love slumbers, I have taken the time to write it all down, everything that has happened this day and everything that I have learned. I must record every detail because if this letter is ever found, the truth should be known. It has taken hours to get it all down, and she will certainly return soon. The power in Gata's stasis jewel dwindles. If it depletes before we escape this place, it won't matter where we go…nothing will be able to save her.' How long does a stasis jewel last?" Kara asks, Mon-El.

"Six hours on full charge," he answers. "But how does any of that say that a coup wasn't the Trinitarians' intention?" Mon-El queries, scratching his fingernails through the beard that is no longer there, as he paces the floor behind her on spindly, child-like legs.

"It doesn't…exactly. But it does tell us, based on the capacity of the stasis jewel, that he spent a great deal of time writing down everything he remembered about how it all unfolded. He's had time to choose his words carefully. So…here…." Kara points to scribbles on the first page of the missive. "He says that he entered a clearing in the maze and saw that a struggle had taken place, the picnic left strewn on the ground. 'I feared that she had fallen and hit her head and that, dazed, she might have accidentally wandered deeper into the maze to seek help. It wasn't until I overheard my wife's attacker, Seflan Mos, threaten her life and that of our unborn child that I truly grasped just how dire the situation was. Panicked, I listened to her screams, begging for our child's life, as I tried desperately to find a short cut through the maze. Eventually I discovered my beloved fighting for her life in Lure's Clearing. I fought with the assailant, beating the traitor almost to the point of death. It was only then that I realized how badly injured my beloved was."

"So?"

"Why only her?" Kara questions. "If you want to perpetrate a coup, why only go after the Regent's wife, who in this case is arguably the least powerful person in the palace? Does that make sense to you? Why not wait until they're in the maze together and take them both at once. Killing Gata first would have only made it exponentially more difficult to assassinate Trel later. Instead he writes earlier in the letter that Kallas Max waylaid him before he could follow Gata into the maze, where they planned a romantic meal together. You were earlier convinced that Max was perhaps leader of the coup."

"They didn't want to kill Trel," he deduces.

Kara shakes her head slowly. "Only her and the unborn, half-Kryptonian heir. No doubt they had a story all planned about a jealous Kryptonian lover, which explains why a version of that story ended up circulating on Krypton." Kara breathes a sigh of relief she hadn't realized she's been holding. Scanning the letter once more, she seeks answers to the one question still burning in her mind. "But why?"

"Gata had converted Trel to Rao's Light, and that made Trinitarians very unhappy. So an attempt to eliminate her was made in the garden maze."

"But she survived," Kara points out. "It says here in the letter, that he managed to get a stasis jewel on her and then…someone was preparing the way for them. A woman. Who was she?"

"Not a clue, but stasis jewels are of little use to either of them if he was unable to get her to a medical suite, and as you read the power was dwindling. With injuries that severe, she would have been dead long before they could have made an effective escape out of Capital City. But they were going to try." Mon-El takes the letter from her and finds the last page, flipping it over to reveal the final few paragraphs which Kara has not yet managed to analyze. He points at the last few lines of script. "They were going to try to escape to a place called Ather. But they must have been caught and killed in the attempt."

Kara's eyes read through the closing of the letter, her heart skipping in her chest as a long-buried memory roars to life. "Maybe…maybe not," she gasps, re-reading the letter's most telling paragraph.

"What?" he inquires. "What is it?" Instinctually, he straightens, mirroring her body's own sudden action, as though called to alert.

"What if...go with me on this. Imagine that they weren't caught and killed in the coup? What if they had managed an escape to a place where they couldn't be followed…what would have happened, here in the palace?" she wonders, her mind formulating an alternate scenario that seems more and more plausible the longer she thinks about it. "How would the conspirators have proceeded?"

After a moment's consideration he answers slowly. "Without bodies…they would have known there was no going back."

"Despite their failure, they were committed. They would have been forced to improvise."

'So…they would need a new story and they would need to sell it." Mon-El adds, his eyes widening as he begins to cotton to the game.

"A smokescreen," Kara qualifies. The part of her accustomed to puzzling together bits of truth into a cohesive, provable narrative, roars to life within her. "A fiction in which Krypton, Daxam's enemy, bears partial blame."

"But in which the Regent is discredited as well, so that the people aren't calling for a renewal of hostilities for which the conspirators are not yet prepared."

"With no Regent and a dying king, all that's left is an underage boy to sit on the throne. So they kill the king to make the ascension of his much younger, unprepared son, easier for the people to swallow."

"And of course, the sudden deaths of his entire family makes the new child-king more biddable. He might have been aware of the plot by the time his father was murdered – forced to watch it all unfold, unable to know who to trust or how to prevent it. He had to keep his mouth shut or risk losing his own life. Everything on the Daxcess – all the holos – would have been faked and The Purge staged to wipe all knowledge from the Daxcess.

"And that's how a coup happens," Kara nods.

"But Allic managed to keep this place intact by declaring it Forbidden, perhaps hoping that one day the truth would be known." Mon-El now sees his own history from a new perspective. "By declaring it Forbidden, nothing could be removed from these apartments."

"Like taping off a crime scene."

"No changes could be made."

"No accidental discovery of lockboxes by the wrong person during a palace remodel."

"But none of that explains why you think they managed to escape."

"There are some things you only truly understand when looking backwards," she muses.

"I'm not following."

"During the last few months before Krypton exploded, my uncle Jor-El must have been under a lot of pressure from the High Council to find a way to solve the problem of Krypton's collapsing core. But…I think he gave up on finding a way to save the planet, because he became obsessed with researching wormholes. I guess he was must have been looking for ways to evacuate Krypton on a mass scale, because he spent weeks calculating the power needed to open and stabilize a wormhole long enough send two hundred thousand people through it. His calculations must not have worked in our favor, because as our time dwindled, he gave up on the idea of stable wormholes and decided to settle for inherent instability in tears in space-time instead. Jor-El became heavily invested in the idea of evacuating a select group of civilians into a pocket universe we call 'The Phantom Zone."

"The place Krypton sent its worst prisoners?"

"Correct. When he mentioned the idea to the High Council, it was immediately shot down. Instead they decided on a more traditional escape via ships. And so the best and brightest of the Guilds were prepared for evacuation, as well as fifteen hundred children chosen by secret lottery. Obviously…neither my cousin, nor I, were chosen. But that didn't matter because Jor-El already had a plan."

"The pods," Mon-El infers.

"Right. But even to the end, he kept trying to convince the Council that The Phantom Zone was a viable muster point, even if it was only a stop gap measure. Entrance to The Phantom Zone is by a device called a projector, capable of creating a temporary tear in the fabric of space-time. We would have been able to enter The Phantom Zone…"

"But not to leave it."

"The projector would have been destroyed on Krypton and without one at the point of destination—"

"You would have been trapped. All of you."

"Cursed to live in perpetuity in a place where time doesn't move and nothing ever changes. So…not a perfect plan. Jor-El kept working the problem right up until the end though. Looking for a way to use The Phantom Zone as a bridge to somewhere else. A way my pod inadvertently found years later."

"For which I am eternally grateful, but what does that have to do with Gata and Trel?"

"My aunt Astra was found guilty of treason and sent to Fort Rozz, which was launched into The Phantom Zone. I, in my never-ending curiosity, asked my uncle Jor-El if he could tell me about the place where my aunt had been sent. My uncle believed that children should be dealt with truthfully and so he told me the story of The Phantom Zone. You might be surprised to know that it was discovered by a Daxamite who, according to our spies, immediately attempted to weaponize it. From all accounts they too were trying to find a way to use it as a portal…to invade Krypton."

"You think Daxam would do that?" he demands in protest.

"I think they were looking for an advantage," she replies, tactfully. "I also know that Kryptonian spies stole the technology and we made it useless for attack by using our own criminals as a gauntlet of sentries. The worst of our kind. But, strangely, even before then, the Sapphire Guard discovered that Daxam had stopped trying to access the pocket universe. I bet if we searched the Daxcess for information on military experiments, we'd find one that was mysteriously shut down after the coup." When Mon-El opens his mouth to protest, Kara waves him off. "It doesn't matter anyway."

"You think they escaped into The Phantom Zone? That's crazy!"

"Is it?" Kara holds up the letter pointing out one of the final phrases. "This doesn't say 'Ather', Mon-El," she replies, breathlessly, reading over and over the word to be certain. "One of things I remember Jor-El telling me is that The Phantom Zone wasn't always called The Phantom Zone – that was a codename first used by the Kryptonian Military Guild. Before we repurposed it as a prison, and gave it a scary name, it was called something else. A name bestowed upon it by Daxamite scientists. It was called 'The Aether'. That's what the letter says…that they were attempting an escape 'to the Aether.' Trel's handwriting became slightly illegible at the end."

"That's why Ral told me to find Jor-El," Mon-El realizes. "He would have been able to tell me all about The Aether."

"And how to get in and out of there. Mon-El…if this letter is true, and most of what we theorized happened…do you know what that means?"

For a moment, Mon-El allows hope to spring in his chest, his faith to nearly return before he finds himself shutting it all down. "No," he shakes his head. "No that's just crazy."

"It's what your mind has been telling you all this time. You had nearly all the pieces, especially after you met me and found out that I came through The Phantom Zone."

"You had the final piece. You knew what Jor-El knew."

"Mon-El," she breathes, her eyes tearing up. "Gata and Trel are still alive, and we have to save them."

Before her eyes, Mon-El shifts to his current age. Gone is the perfectly groomed beard and the slightly bulkier shoulders of Prince Mon-El of Daxam, now replaced by the man with whom she's spent the last months falling in love. "How?" he asks, the hope sprouting again in his eyes.

"I know a way, but you know that we can't do it from here."

A door appears in the center of the room – a portal unattached to any walls. Emblazoned on its center, in blinking bright blue neon, is a sign that says, 'Exit Here' in curly script, several blinking arrows pointing frantically at the door.

Mon-El laughs, his eyes sparking to life in a way she hasn't seen since before his meltdown. "Winn's idea?" he guesses.

"Winn's idea," Kara confirms with a grin.

Afraid it will disappear as quickly as it appeared, she rushes to the door and swings it open to reveal only a blinding whiteness. Turning around, she holds out her hand, reaching for him. "Come home with me?" she pleads. "Come home with me and I swear I'll help you fulfill your promise to Morgon. Please."

He stares at the bright light, refusing to believe that this door isn't meant for him. Refusing to believe that his own mind would prevent his exit now. In fact, he feels its pull, as though returning home now is only a matter of letting himself fall.

Without the slightest tinge of fear, he takes her hand and follows her into the light.


	21. Chapter 21

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 21/?

Mon-El gasps as though his lungs have been deprived of air to the point of near-drowning, and in the enforced darkness his head swims with the sudden rush of oxygen. Even through the helmet, he hears a flurry of activity, racing hearts pounding in his ears like a collection of tympani drums in a closed room, the incessant beeping and whooshing of medical equipment through it all. He claws his way out from beneath the weighted blanket holding him captive. "Kara!" he calls out, feeling suddenly adrift in a void, despite the sound of life all around him. His throat his scratchy, his voice rusty from lack of use.

"I'm here," she answers quickly, hearing the fear in his voice. Her own voice sounding strong and sure in contrast to his.

In response to the confidence she projects, Mon-El's heart calms, easing back into a normal rhythm. He hadn't even been aware it was outpacing those around him until just then. Anxious to see her, to ensure himself that she was real and not some projection of his id-controlled imagination, Mon-El reaches for the cumbersome helmet on his head to remove it.

"No!" shout several voices at once, one he doesn't recognize and the other he pinpoints as a distant, but friendly memory. Winn? His hands freeze in mid-action.

"We don't know what will happen when you open your eyes," Winn explains. "Just let us."

Ah, yes. His lately emergent heat vision. Unwilling to risk harming anyone, Mon-El waits on the razor's edge of patience as he listens to the shutdown of machinery around him. The constant hum around his head tapers off and he can hear cables disconnecting from the helmet that helped to connect Kara to his mind while he was comatose. There's still a slight buzzing in his skull though, his forehead tingling with it, making him all the more anxious to be free of his constraints.

"There's a process we have to follow for shutdown," Winn explains, his voice soothing as though sensing Mon-El's anxiety and adjusting accordingly. "You can't just take these things off. They're plugged into your brain. Sort of. Okay…close your eyes and keep them closed until I say so."

Following Winn's instructions, Mon-El adjusts the angle of his head to ease the removal of the VR helmet, sighing out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding once free of the contraption. Something new settles on his face – his glasses – and suddenly the buzzing in his forehead quiets as though a switch has been flipped.

"Whoa," Mon-El breathes.

"You feel that?" Winn asks. Mon-El nods, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. "Oh….you can open your eyes now."

He must use a hand held over his face to shield from the brightness of the overhead halogens; his mind may feel as though he's been awake for an eternity, but his eyes know differently. The light pierces through him, his eyelids fluttering as his pupils struggle to acclimate to being pressed into service without warning after a long vacation.

"Take it easy," Winn suggests. "Baby steps. Welcome back, buddy," Winn adds, a gentle smile spreading across his face.

"He's right," Eliza Danvers agrees, stepping over to him after giving her daughter a cursory and thoroughly unnecessary examination. "I'd like to examine you, if that's okay?"

Eyes squinting, Mon-El nods. Winn helps him into a sitting position, his body creaking, and his muscles stiff from lack of use. It's then that he notices the needle in his arm attached to an IV bag hanging on a pole next to bed.

"Your ability as a siphon fuels your autonomic reflexes, like telling your heart to beat and your lungs to breathe," Dr. Danvers explains. "It did an admirable job of keeping you alive while you were out. But you would have died sooner rather than later because siphoning electricity, as it turns out, doesn't keep the body hydrated. If there was one good thing about your powers flaring out, it's that it allowed us to get an IV port into you. I'd like to keep it in for the moment – to get some comparative blood samples, before we remove it. Just some basics."

Mon-El knew he could trust her – knew that she only wanted to increase her baseline knowledge, clarify the differences between him and Kara, so that she could help him should he ever need it. Again. "Of course," he nods, his voice painful gravel, his tongue too large in his mouth.

"Winn," Dr. Danvers calls. "I think Mon-El could use a bottle of water. I'm sure his throat's a little dry."

But before Winn can return to fulfill the request, or before Eliza can continue her examination, Kara's there, her arms going around his neck, pressing kisses to his cheek. "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

Mon-El pulls her tightly against him, as tightly as his atrophied arms and the presence of loved ones will allow. He breathes in the sweetness of her familiar scent, undiminished by the untold amount of time spent laying on a hospital bed. "I'm okay," he answers, finally, tucking his forehead into her neck.

"How do you feel?"

"Real," he replies, allowing them both a little chuckle. With the secret understanding that no matter how real being virtual can feel sometimes, there's no substitute for wearing your own skin and bone. He aches, the way he did after waking from stasis, his body too long unmoving and unreactive. It's a stiffness that he knows will dissipate quickly, a little activity turning it into an unimportant memory, but for now it serves a vital purpose. "I feel real," he answers again.

"How is your head?" she wonders, worrying about the damage she did during his meltdown. "Does it hurt badly?"

"Now you're stealing my lines," Eliza interrupts. Her voice chuckles, but there's concern in her eyes. "Kara, why don't you give me a few minutes to do an examination?"

"But—" she protests.

"No, it's okay, Kara," Mon-El takes her hands. His head is spinning with a jumble of memories. The eternity spent in his dreamscape had seemed so clear and concrete at the time, but now a fog plays around its edges, and Mon-El finds he wants to somehow solidify every detail and release it all from his mind's grasp at the same time. "Didn't you say you knew what to do?"

Kara's eyes widen, having forgotten for a moment the entire reason for their waking. Remembering, at his words, that despite their return, there are still lives hanging in the balance – she hopes. "Maybe," she nods. "But we'll need my cousin's help…and J'onn and Alex will need to be briefed."

Mon-El remembers with perfect clarity the response to his unexpected arrival on this planet – a response that seemed strangely aggressive and welcoming in turns, as though the DEO policy itself had a problem with multiple personalities. There was no way they could save Gata and Trel without the DEO's greenlight. "Convince them," he begs.

"I will," Kara nods.

"Briefed about what?" Alex asks, joining the conversation only when she hears her name mentioned in low undertones.

Kara and Mon-El share a long look before he nods at her. "You're sure you'll be okay?" she asks.

"With your mom looking after me?" he jokes. "I'll be fine. But I'm going to need some time – maybe a few days. I feel like I haven't slept in weeks."

"Because you haven't," Eliza points out. "Not really. You've gone far too long without Delta wave rhythms. Even for a Daxamite."

"Find out what we're up against," Mon-El urges. "We'll need a plan."

"What is he talking about?" Alex demands, her frustration about being left out of the loop written clearly in the straightened slash of eyebrows across her forehead.

"Go," he says one last time. "Change your clothes. There's work to do. I'm sure I'm in good hands."

After placing a quick peck on his lips, Kara turns and departs the room, her sister one step behind, Mon-El's eyes tracking them as they go.

"Now," Dr. Danver's voice interrupts. "Let's get down to brass tacks. How does your head feel?" She flicks a penlight over each eye, watching the pupils dilate and constrict in response.

"A little foggy," he answers honestly, licking his dry lips. "A dull ache."

"Your skull was fractured in three places," she explains. "In humans…head injuries take a long time to heal. I'd like to get a CT scan when we're done here. We did two of them while you were unconscious, and I'd like a comparison now that you're awake."

"Of course," Mon-El nods.

Her examination went on, only interrupted when someone, at last, brought him a bottle of water. He sucked the liquid down in three long gulps, wiping his mouth afterwards with the back of his hand. For the first time, he felt the thick growth of hair on his face, scraggly and unkempt. He had a beard in the dreamscape, but recalls now that here, on Earth, he's always clean-shaven.

"Sorry about that," Dr. Danvers apologizes. "We tried everything, even a laser-scalpel, but it just didn't touch it. It wasn't hot enough, I suppose."

"It's okay," Mon-El says, scratching at the beard. "I'll get Kara to take care of it later."

"Or perhaps Clark can teach you – once you've learned to control your heat vision. There's a technique to it, I'm told." She twists of the cap of a second bottle of water and hands it to him.

"I'm good," he declines.

"Thirty-two more ounces," she orders. "And then, when you're ready…this." Kara's mom hands him a cup with measurement marking on the outside and paper lid that can't possibly be of any use.

It takes Mon-El a moment to put the pieces together and then he grimaces. "Really?"

"Really," she confirms. "My areas of examination are limited with you…and Kara…and even J'onn. I have to take advantage of the ones I have. Don't be embarrassed…it's perfectly normal on this planet."

"I know. I'm just not sure my mate's mother should know me _that_ well. Seems wrong, somehow."

"I'm sorry…your…what?"

"What…what?" Mon-El blinks, pressing his lips tightly together. The urine collection cup shatters in his hand, causing Eliza Danvers to startle. Did Kara not tell her mother? Was it supposed to be a secret? Had things changed between them because of his breakdown?

He hadn't really had time to think about it in the few minutes he's been awake. Everything seemed okay when Kara kissed him before leaving. But maybe she's not ready to tie herself to someone like him, someone so damaged and broken that a mere emotional tantrum can terrorize his colleagues, at best, and at worst, generate a body count. Maybe he's too volatile for her to latch with him.

Well…this is awkward. Should he tell her the truth, or should he lie to the woman who is essentially his bond-mother? What would Kara want him to do?

His head is far too fuzzy to think about such things right now.

They're hardly out of earshot before Alex begins to pepper her with questions. Kara forces herself to maintain a gait that her sister can match.

"What did he mean when he said that we needed a plan?" Alex interrogates, her back ramrod straight as though preparing for a siege.

Considering the expression of concern on Alex's face, the deep creases on her sister's forehead that Kara knows she put there, she stops walking long enough to place a comforting hand on Alex's shoulder. "I'm sorry for being gone so long," Kara apologizes, empathizing with the amount of stress she must have placed on her stalwart sister. After the first few days in the dreamscape, Kara began to keep track of the time, a feat not made easy by Daxam's lack of usual time markers. But she had done her best. "I know three months is a long time to maintain a vigil without losing hope, but I want to thank you for trusting me. For having enough faith in me to do what needed to be done, even though it took a _lot_ longer than either of us may have expected."

"Twenty-one minutes," Alex counters, her eyes squinted in confusion. "You were under for twenty-one minutes."

"What?" Kara shakes her head, refusing to believe what her sister was telling her. "No, that's….are you sure?"

"Don't get me wrong…it was the longest twenty-one minutes of my life, but I counted every single one of them. It wasn't even long enough for me to need a pee break."

"I counted the days as best I could."

"We can live entire lifetimes in dreams," Alex says, philosophically.

"Rao!" Kara exclaims, covering her open mouth with her hand.

"Kara?"

"Mon-El was under for more than a week," she voices her realization. "He said it felt like an eternity but I never thought…."

"That it might have seemed like an actual eternity?"

"He was reliving the worst moments of his life until I arrived. He showed them all to me and believe me…seeing them once was hellish enough." Another thought occurs to her and her eyes widen comically. "And what about while I was out? Did it seem like…anything was happening to me?"

"A few blips on the EKG, nothing unexpected. Parts of your brain activating and then settling."

"Which parts?" Kara wonders.

"All the parts," Alex replies, flippantly. "Broca's Area, Frontal Lobe, Sensory Cortex, Temporal Lobe, the Parietal…most of the big ones. It's how we knew something was actually happening. Why?" Alex's eyes narrow. "What went on in there?"

Kara's mouth snaps closed, and she finds herself speechless for a moment. In the dreamscape, she hadn't taken a moment to consider how she might explain things once she was back in the physical world. She needs to think fast. "Like you said, the mind is very powerful and…unpredictable. We got down to the bottom of what caused his meltdown. I hope. But he was trapped in there. His mind was trying to force him to remember something and keeping him captive until he did."

"Must have been something awful," Alex consoles, though not pressing her sister for details.

"That's just it…it wasn't. It was something he read as a child that he couldn't truly comprehend at the time. Something that solved a mystery that kept Daxam and Krypton at odds for more than a century before the destruction. And it was something his brother said to him, just before he died, that helped tie it all together. But I had a piece of the puzzle too…one I didn't even know I had. That's why I need to call Clark, because he's got one too."

"What's the mystery?"

"I'll explain everything just…just do me a favor?" Kara glances down at her own body, as though realizing for the first time that she's still wearing the thin hospital gown. She hadn't felt a moment's discomfort at the people she'd passed in the corridor who had given her double takes or had stopped to stare for a second too long. She hadn't felt any embarrassment at all. She could have walked naked down the hallway without a seond thought.

"What is it?"

"Grab J'onn and meet me in the conference room. I just need a few minutes."

Alex nods sharply, trusting that her sister would give her the full debrief in time, and watches as her sister disappears into the locker room.

Kara takes a long, hot shower, even though technically she took one only a few hours ago. The EKG leads Alex had affixed to her chest left behind the remnants of a thick epoxy that need removal, but her real reason for showering is the chance to be alone for a few moments. She'd lived nearly three months, more or less, on Daxam while in the dreamscape, lived a lifestyle that was vastly different than the one she had here, and she needs a few moments to deal with her reentry.

When she dons it, her suit makes her feel overdressed, which is when she realizes it may take a while to adjust to her general lack of nudity. Kara brushes her hand across her neck, missing the collar that claimed her as his property. She can still feel the tight straps of the harness around her, but feels the void left by the absence of her training hook. She doesn't know what to think, or what to feel about any of this.

Stuffing the miasma of feelings down for the time being, Kara heads to conference room, her cape whipping behind her. She nearly skips the complete retelling of the Gata and Trel saga since Alex knows the story and J'onn had once heard the tale long ago from a Kryptonian Emissary. Until Kal flies into the DEO's landing balcony.

"I'm glad to see you," Kal greets, wrapping Kara up in a long hug which she gratefully reciprocates. "Alex said you needed my help," he explains when he finally pulls away, his striking blue eyes filled with concern. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Kara shakes her head. "I'm not hurt, if that's what you're worried about. It's a different kind of help."

"Whatever you need," Kal nods.

Realizing that Kal needs debriefing on the scandal every Kryptonian learned by the time they reached Guilding age, Kara launches into her retelling of the story of Gata and Trel. Despite already knowing the basic (though divergent) tale, both Alex and J'onn are undoubtedly surprised to hear the truth of it, rather than the watered-down mess of a legend that had first reached their ears.

"They're alive!?" J'onn and Alex both shout in unison.

"In the Phantom Zone, we believe," Kara confirms, casting a glance at Kal, whose eyes narrow suspiciously. "Though it wasn't called the Phantom Zone back then. They were its first…inhabitants…seems like the wrong word."

"Is there any chance that you're wrong about this?" J'onn questions.

"I suppose," Kara concedes, but quickly bounces back to the offense, "but shouldn't we try to rescue them even if there's only the tiniest chance that I'm right? If being in Mon-El's dreamscape seemed like a long time, imagine being in The Phantom Zone with no escape hatch."

"I can't begin to imagine what the government would say about us bringing another Kryptonian and a Daxamite to this planet," J'onn wonders, dutifully bringing up the topic because he knew no one else would. But he knew it was a topic that, realistically, had to be addressed.

"Are you kidding me?" Superman demands, for the first time speaking something other than pleasantries.

"Astra and Non and their murderous band of Kryptonian confederates tried to rule this world, or have you forgotten? Not every Kryptonian can be expected to be a hero, Superman. This Gata person wasn't raised on Earth by human parents, nor did she grow up with a human sister. We have no way of predicting how she might react to seeing a world of people she can crush beneath her heel. To say nothing of how her Daxamite husband may behave. A Regent, was he? He could very well decide ruling one planet is as good as any other."

"We can handle it," Kara insists, her eyes meeting Kal's in silent agreement. They would protect Earth, even if it meant defeating and imprisoning another Kryptonian to do so.

"That's all well and good," J'onn nods, tucking his hands into his pants pockets, "but I can't take that to the President. I need a plan better than, 'the resident Kryptonians will take care of it'."

"Earth-14."

All heads swivel in unison towards the door where one of their visitors, Cisco Ramon, stands, trying not to look sheepish. "I came to let you know that as soon Caitlin can gather her things, we're going to be taking off, and I couldn't help but overhear…."

"Earth-14?" Kal reminds, seeking clarification.

"Yeah," Cisco swallows and clears his throat. "A post-apocalyptic Earth where truly only the worst of humanity managed to survive. They want to rule something? Let them rule that hot mess. And if they don't want to rule…and it turns out they might want to help, we can find an Earth that would be happy to have a couple of supers on hand to save the day from time to time."

J'onn nods, thoughtfully. "I can work with that.

Kara claps her hands together in celebration, knowing that the hardest part – convincing J'onn – is a success.

"Before you break out the champagne," J'onn rumbles, "how exactly are we going to rescue two people from The Phantom Zone?"

"For that," Kara announces, "we'll need Kal's help."

Suddenly realizing the purpose for the summons, his face shifts through a series of expressions that has Kara's stomach tying in knots. She'd been so certain he would jump at the chance to help rescue two people in need, especially their own…kind. She had taken that belief for granted. Could she have been wrong?

"I have a Phantom Zone projector at the Fortress," he confesses. "Jor-El sent it with me in my pod, in hopes that I could use it as means to transport evacuees to Earth when I was old enough to understand."

"But in the end, there had been no evacuation, and the plan was abandoned after your departure," Kara continues. "Even in its last moments, the Council hung all of its hopes on the last dreadnaught. Your father was offered a stasis shell on the evacuating ship, but he refused to go without your mother. Krypton literally crumbled around me as my pod broke the atmosphere and the dreadnaught was destroyed by chunks of rock. Unlike my pod, it wasn't maneuverable enough to outrun the bulk of the shockwave, and they left the escape until too late." Kara, as though delivering an emotional blow to Kal, tilts her head sadly and reaches for his hand. "The Phantom Zone projector is a precise piece of equipment that requires stability to perform. The last hours of Krypton didn't provide the stability necessary to establish a portal."

"I know," Kal confirms. "Not long after I erected the Fortress, I used the Projector to explore The Phantom Zone. I went searching for evacuees in need of rescue, but all I found were…."

"Criminals?" Kara asks.

Kal nods, his eyes dark with disappointment and remembrance. "Murderers and thieves, most of them, reveling in the lawlessness of a society of their own making. I was trapped there for a while, the last son of the House many of them held responsible for their banishment. And I had no powers, Kara. I barely made it out of there. Which is why I strongly caution you against doing what you're planning to do."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kara wonders, imagining how terrifying and heartbreaking it was to discover the remnants of his dead world, only to be nearly killed by them.

"You were a child," he explains. "Newly arrived on Earth and just settling in with the Danvers. I didn't want to give you false hope that others might be alive, and afterwards…I couldn't bear to tell you that we were all the future that Krypton had left."

"How long were you gone?" J'onn wonders.

"When I returned, three months had passed. It's hard to say how it felt being in the Zone. Time stands…still. I'm not sure words can accurately describe what it's like there."

Recalling the tidally locked world of Daxam and how difficult it was to adjust to their concept of days, Kara relates, "There are no time markers."

"At first you try to hang onto time, tracking minutes and marking days based on when you're tired and you need to sleep, or how often your body tells you you're hungry. You think it's because there's no time markers; no rotation on an axis or around the sun. You're hanging onto normal time constructs like you're clinging to the handholds of a sheer cliff that has no summit, only to realize the cliff is something you invented in your head. It's like living inside of snapshot – if you can call that living. You don't age, and wounds don't heal. Everything is just perpetually stagnant. But there are ways other than time to measure a person's sentence. They say…eventually everyone lets go of the cliff and once they do that's when—"

"They become Phantoms," Kara finishes.

"Institutionalized," he confirms. "If there ever was any civilized society there, it was no more by the time I arrived – just…lawlessness.

"Okay…well there's no way I'm letting you go in there unprotected," Alex asserts, crossing her arms with decided finality.

"It's hand-to-hand only in there or staff type weapons. Projectile and energy weapons won't fire, except in The Partition. That's not the worst of it, either," Kal sighs, rubbing at the tension wrinkles on his forehead.

"What do you mean?" J'onn asks.

"Without a DNA key we're stumbling around in the dark. Jor-El left me with the data crystal that accesses the Projector, which can only be used by a member of the House of El. When each of the prisoners were sent to The Phantom Zone they were done so using Jor-El's crystal. Each prisoner's DNA was tied to Jor-El's Projector crystal so that, on the rare occasions that their sentence was up, a prisoner could be recalled using the Projector crystal. This means that when a person stepped through the portal, they would be taken to the requested prisoner. Without a specific request…the default is to take the traveler to the largest congregation of lifeforms."

"A dangerous prospect," J'onn broods, visibly trying to wrap his mind around the problem in search of a solution.

"He's not wrong," Kal agrees.

Spending an extended vacation in another person's head tends to play tricks on one's mind. Specifically, allowing Kara to forget briefly that the information she gained there was not yet common knowledge. "Can we reprogram the Projector crystal with a new set of DNA coordinates?"

Kal considers a moment before shrugging. "The console at the Fortress should have the capability, but where are we going to get the DNA sample?"

Kara inhales a deep steadying breath. "From Mon-El," she confesses in a rush. "He was never a palace guard. He's the Prince of Daxam." Before the room can devolve into a battlefield where questions are the ammunition hurtling towards her, Kara tells them the bare bones of what she learned in the dreamscape. Nothing of the emotional turmoil behind the tale's truth or how it all still haunts Mon-El still – but the relevant information.

"So he's a descendent of Prince Trel?" Kal questions, before pondering the probabilities.

"Technically from Trel's brother, Allic."

"Three generations removed…it's not ideal and it won't get us to Trel's front door, but it could get us in the vicinity."

"Two generations," Kara corrects. She and Mon-El hadn't discussed revealing this truth to anyone else, and the idea of confessing it rankles, but it could be relevant knowledge in the circumstances. "King Vir was poisoned by one of his wives and it left his…sperm…corrupted and unviable. He stole Kryptonian cloning technology to ensure that his line carried on after him."

Alex perks up, the scientist in her clearly intrigued. "Mon-El is a…clone?" she asks, as though she hadn't heard Kara right the first time.

"Please don't…treat him any differently," she begs. "It's kind of a sensitive subject. He believes he's destined to become the monster that King Vir was, and he's anything but."

"Of course," Alex shakes her head. And then, as though to soothe her sister, "Genetics aren't everything. We're more than our base pairs. But still…fascinating."

"Will it still work?" Kara asks Kal. "Will the fact that he's a clone be a problem?"

Kal's forehead creases deeply between his eyebrows, and for the first time Kara notices that he displays the same crinkle which frequently catches her out. It must be an El family trait.

Except that his crinkle is one of concern rather than the tell unmasking an attempted obfuscation. "Cloning on Krypton was regulated at the highest levels by the Law Guild and as such it was under the purview of the Sapphire Guard. In the process, specific protein markers were intentionally left in the blood of clones so that they could never pass as originals. It's possible the Guard placed restrictions on the Projector crystal to keep a clone from activating it."

"Wow," Alex chuckles uncomfortably. "You really did a deep dive with Jor-El's avatar."

Kal chuckles. "You ever look something up on Wikipedia and the next thing you know it's four hours later?"

"Clicking link after link," Alex nods, her hands on her hips. "Say no more."

"I had years of that," he explains, "before Kara showed up to answer my questions. As you can imagine…I had a lot of them."

"Sorry about that," Kara shrugs.

"I'm the one who's sorry," Kal rejoins. "If my hypothesis is correct, Mon-El's DNA won't work."

"Maybe we don't need it." For the second time since Superman's arrival, their conversation is interrupted, only this time it's the subject of the conversation standing in the doorway. Winn stands behind him, seemingly concerned that Mon-El might fall and harm himself, but also huffing as though keeping up with the supposedly sick man had been a challenge.

"Mon-El!" Kara shouts, rushing to his side. "What are you doing here? You should be in bed."

"I'm fine," he insists, as she throws her arms around him. "Your mother said I should grab some more sun-lamp time but that I improve by the minute, even the CT scan shows rapid healing underway. She's released me temporarily on the condition that I don't attempt any complicated rescues today."

"Your head?" Kara gasps, pulling away from him. Her fingers brush through his hair looking from extrusions or bumps, causing him to blush in a manner quite at odds with the sexual creature she knows him to be. Because he's unaccustomed to being the subject of such on open display of emotional affection.

"Practically as good as new," he promises softly, endeared by her obvious concern. "I feel fine. Though, ironically, I could use a good night's sleep."

"You should do that then," Kara tells him. "Get some sleep."

"In our bed," he agrees, a wistful smile on his face. "When we go home tonight. That is…if it's still _our_ home." He had been in the dreamscape for what seemed like an eternity and when, finally, he had awakened, his life with Kara had seemed simultaneously like ages ago and just yesterday. It was hard to accept that he'd only been away from this life for a handful of days. "Besides…there's no way I was going to let you plan any more of this rescue without me. Now," he sighs, dropping heavily into in one of the conference room chairs, "when you started talking about the crystal key and the DNA coding, it made me remember something."

"You were eavesdropping?" Kara asks, worried about what he overheard.

"Turns out…I've got super-hearing. Can you believe that?" he jokes.

"How much did you hear?" she asks, concerned about what he might _think_ about what he overheard

"All of it. I'm a clone. My blood probably won't work…but that's what gave me the idea."

"What idea?" Kal asks.

"In my dreamscape, I kept living that moment over and over again. Taking the Kryptonian pod and leaving the king to perish on Daxam…."

"It was justice," Kara reasons, vividly recalling witnessing the moment. Witnessing the man and the horrors he visited on his heir…and upon Ral. Her heart freezes in her chest. "Besides, if _he'd_ been the one to make it to Earth…." Her sentence trails off, but the involuntary shudder that passes through her body tells the rest of the tale. "Thank Rao it was you."

Mon-El shrugs, as if justice and fate are not for him to decide, and even if they were, it wouldn't be his desire. "When I landed on Earth, what happened to my personal effects?" He looks around the room, hoping someone present might have the answer he seeks.

"We searched your things, looking for some sort of identification," J'onn replies, as though this breach of privacy were standard operating procedure.

"There wasn't much," Winn recalls. "A crystal we assumed to be the pod's navigational data. Which is was," he smiles. "Took me a few all-nighters to crack it. That's stored away now – in case we need to use the pod again."

"Was there anything else?"

J'onn searches his memory. "A necklace…if I recall. With an interesting, oblong medallion. The chain was broken."

Mon-El perks up, his spine straightening. "Where is it? Please tell me we still have it."

Winn bursts into laughter. "As if we'd throw anything away that's of alien origin. It's catalogued somewhere. Why? Is it important?"

"It's the Royal Seal of Daxam," Mon-El explains. "And it carries the DNA profile of every Daxamite monarch since the technology was perfected ten generations ago."

Catching on quickly, J'onn pivots in Winn's direction. "Find it." When Winn doesn't spring into action, their no-nonsense leader barks, "Now!"

Winn startles before making a bee-line for the door, visibly cranky about being kicked out of the strategy session.

"But…Trel was never king," Kara points out.

"No…but his father contracted a rare parasite that caused irreversible dementia and, as a consequence, Trel was made Regent. He would have had to enter his DNA into the Royal Seal to sign all orders and decrees on the king's behalf. If we can find a way for the Kryptonian consoles at the Fortress of Solitude to interface with the Daxamite Seal…it could work, couldn't it?"

"What's a…Fortress of Solitude?" a momentarily forgotten Cisco pipes up, as though incapable of stopping himself.

Kal glances at Kara, who nods in response to the question in his eyes, letting her cousin know that Cisco is good people. Briefly, Kal explains to the otherworlder the origin of the Kryptonian Fortress of Solitude hidden in the Arctic Circle, Kara watching as Cisco's already large brown eyes expand exponentially, it seems, with each sentence.

"So…you're going to need help with that, right? Figuring out the interface? I'm in!" he exclaims. "Just let me tell Caitlin I'm going to be here a few more days. Or maybe…the rest of my life." Dazed, he stumbles out of the room before anyone has the chance to deny him his dream of playing with not one, but two different alien technologies.

"He'll probably be useful…?" Alex hopes. "And if he goes—"

"Winn will insist on going," Kara finishes, embracing the inevitable.

"Seems like we're taking a trip to the Arctic." Already moving towards the door, Alex continues, "It's going to take a few days to get the supplies requisitioned and a flight plan approved. I know you two can fly there," she points to Kara and Kal, "but the rest of us will need to check out a C-140. We'll need camping gear in case we have to be there a few days and some sort of vehicle to get us from the airport to the Fortress…." Her voice trailing off as the door closes behind her.

"So Alex will do…that," Kara announced.

"I'll head back to Metropolis and let Lois know I'll be at the Fortress for a few days. Give me a shout when everything is ready on this end and I'll meet you up there."

Before Superman could go, Mon-El scrambles out of his chair, straightens his spine as best as his weary body will allow and holds out his hand to Kara's cousin in the accepted Earth greeting. "We haven't been formally introduced," he says, calling upon his years as a Crown Prince to muster his poise. "I'm Mon-El of Daxam."

"It's pleasure to meet you, Mon-El, I'm Clark Kent. Kara's told me all about you." Then he grins at the irony. "Well…most things about you. Something tells me we're going to getting to know each other a lot better in the years to come."

"I hope you're right," Mon-El gushes, nervous flutters in rising his gut at this seeming acceptance from Kara's last remaining blood relative. "I just wanted to say thanks for your help on this. I know it's not an easy decision for you."

"I trust Kara's instincts on this. That saving them is the right thing to do."

A silent moment of understanding passes between them. An acknowledgement that it's more than two lives they're saving, but a burial of whatever animosities once existed between their two planets. A clean slate for the few remaining souls who once drew breath under the same red light of Rao.

Interrupting the moment between the two men, Kara throws her arms around her cousin's neck. "Thanks again for helping us," she whispers.

"Anytime," he replies, tightening his arms around her before releasing his hold. "You're family," he says, as though that explains everything. And it kind of does. "I'll see you soon."

"See you soon," she echoes as he walks away.

Silence rings in the air, the once bustling room having emptied of all but Kara and Mon-El.

"It's strange, isn't it?" his voice breaks the silence when it becomes too much to bear. "Being back here? It feels like…starting over. I know these people…but I feel like I shouldn't. Like I met them in a dream. Does that even make sense?"

"If it makes you feel any better…you don't know Cisco…and you never met Kal face to face."

Mon-El chuckles, adjusting the thick glasses on his face. "It does, actually," he nods.

"How are you feeling?" she asks, lowering her voice intimately. "Really?"

"A little adrift," he confesses. "Nervous…about going to the Phantom Zone." Mon-El holds up a hand when Kara opens her mouth to speak. "And before you say anything…I have to go. I have to make this right. It's what I promised…."

"For Morgon," she whispers, her voice catching in her throat.

"For Morgon," he echoes.

Kara presses her lips together, clasping her hands in front of her. "I understand. But you're tired and you need sleep. Everything else is being handled, it seems. Why don't we get out of here?"

"Those words are music to my ears," he sighs, dragging himself out of his chair.

She takes his hand, lacing her fingers with his. "Yellow sun first," Kara reminds him, pulling him behind her out of the room and toward the balcony exit. "I'll take you flying above the clouds…that should fulfill the doctor's orders."

"Speaking of the doctor...don't be mad…but I might have mentioned to your mother that we had chosen to mate. I am so sorry. It just slipped out, he explains. "In my re-entry haze I lost track of what is common knowledge and what isn't. She seemed quite…shocked."

While Eliza Danvers knew of Kara's relationship with Mon-El, she might not yet have guess the true depth of it. "It's okay," Kara soothes. "She knows we're together. I'll explain the rest to her another time."

"Thank you for understanding. It may take me a few days to adjust to being back," Mon-El warns. Even now, he struggles with his disbelief at returning, his body frequently bracing himself for the shock that comes when he's hijacked into another memory he'd much rather forget.

"I think I'm beginning to understand," Kara nods, tucking a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. "It makes more sense when Alex told me that…" she pauses, shaking her head. "I still find it hard to believe."

"What did Alex tell you?"

"That I was under for less than half an hour. And if half an hour felt that long for me…how must a week have felt for you? It should come as no surprise that re-entry into the physical world might require an adjustment period for you. I was under for only a fraction of the time, and there are parts I still feel. Parts that I miss." Her blue eyes meet his, an invisible bolt of electricity and heat passing between them. "So I can only imagine what you must be going through."

"Yellow sun rays notwithstanding, I think getting back to this life is the best medicine."

"Great," she agrees wholeheartedly. "You know what I couldn't do in there? Fly. I miss flying," Kara declares excitedly.

"Pizza," he counters. "I miss pizza."

"Yes!" she agrees, her eyes lighting up like fireworks. "First flying and then pizza!'

Mon-El's smile matches the carefree grin that spreads across her face. Holding out his arm bent at the elbow as they step onto the balcony. "Shall we?"

"Yes, we shall," she proclaims, looping her arm through his. "Tomorrow you can practice your anti-gravitational field after you've had some real rest. But today you just relax and let me do all the flying."

Before he has chance to answer, she's rocketing them both into the atmosphere towards the light, to the silence, to a place where everything is simple and nothing is taken for granted.

TBC


	22. Chapter 22

Title: Into the Fray, Unflinching

Author: gldngr7

Rating: Explicit

Began: April 21, 2017

Chapters: ?

Feedback: Encouragement and constructive criticisms are always welcome. Flames are destroyed with my freeze breath.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 22/?

It takes longer than expected for Winn and Cisco, working together, to crack the Royal Seal's encryption and glean its treasure trove of data. For Mon-El, the time is diligently spent in the training room, learning to master his heat vision and practicing the generation of an anti-gravity field. Kara keeps her mind off the upcoming mission by patrolling the skies and making sure her presence is felt throughout the city, an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure.

Perhaps because it's the most dangerous of his emerging powers, Mon-El quickly gains the upper hand over his heat vision, all while breathing a sigh of relief that no one was killed when he'd been out of control during his meltdown. With Winn too busy to test Mon-El's new abilities, he's left to employ the equipment on his own.

Surprisingly, with control comes a greater heat output and though his near-white beams will likely never reach Kara's impressive 8000 degrees Kelvin, the testing device reveals he can, and does, reach 6000 degrees Kelvin, a temperature roughly the same as the surface of their yellow sun. Not too shabby. As an added bonus, he's able to attain such a level of control with his heat vision, laser surgery isn't out of the realm of reality, as he gains the ability to narrow his beams to near fiber-optic fineness.

Flying, on the other hand, doesn't come quite as easily. He spends long hours in the training room, even while Kara is at work or out protecting the city, learning at first to float and then move about the room with deliberation and intent. It's draining and, at times, disheartening that he can't imagine ever zipping across the skies like Kara, speeding to someone's defense, or even just flying above the clouds. So instead, he focuses on expanding the field until everything in the room, not nailed to the floor, is floating alongside him.

Outside of his training, all spare time is spent consulting with Winn and Cisco to translate data pulled from the Royal Seal, searching for that one string, buried among innumerable bits of data that will aide them in their quest to rescue his ancestor. There's little opportunity for alone time with Kara, time to reconnect in the outside world, or to reiterate their discussions about what happened in the dreamscape; how he behaved and the motives behind it. Mon-El resigns himself to the distinct possibility that reconnecting may have to wait until after their return from the mission.

Kara, however, is having no such thoughts. After two days of patrolling the city during the day and pounding out that long-awaited exposé on National City's newest (though lately unseen) hero at night, Kara's skin buzzes with anticipation and with need. Now that she's back in her own body, and faced with real world responsibilities and obligations, she finds that her hunger is more muted, slower to build. But it is still there.

Promised journalistic retribution from her boss for obtaining the Valor assignment, Snapper Carr is grousing out her next assignment mere moments after Kara submits her completed exposé. The gleam in his eye is unmistakable and completely at odds with the downturn of his mouth.

Kara tries to fixate on the mustard stain on his tie as he gives his orders.

"Her name is Mistress Elora Vise. Or at least…that's what she goes by." Snapper drops a glossy 8x11 on the desk in front of her of a woman trussed in vinyl and buckles.

"Mistress," Kara echoes, her heart skipping a beat at the sight. She schools her features to appear aghast, but only slightly, though she's certain that her crinkle would give her away if Mon-El or Alex were here.

"She's a dominatrix," he explains. "Congrats, Danvers. You landed an investigative beat on her so-called dungeon in Bridgetown. Rumor has it many of National City's best and brightest, flock to the place. On the down-low, of course."

"Oh, of course!"

"Handle this right and it could become a three-parter." Snapper waves her away with instructions to get out of his face.

He doesn't see the smile that breaks across her face the moment her back is turned.

Unexpected opportunity abounds! The chance to learn about the underground community, to see if she can meet others like herself. Kara wastes no time researching Mistress Vise in her databases, including her back door to the NCPD. Using a few tricks Winn taught her about accessing the dark web, she hones in on Mistress Vise's club in Bridgetown, branded the seemingly uninspired and unremarkable name of 'Club Switch', which is likely the point.

That night, shortly after sunset, she listens from a nearby rooftop as club members arrive, some wearing fancy outerwear concealing nakedness beneath. Some led by leashes attached to collars buckled tightly around their necks and commanded to crawl through the entrance. But all arrive with partners, ensuring that any undercover entrance alone would have her sticking out like a sore thumb. In a place where members are likely to already keep their kinks close to the vest, it's not a difficult stretch to imagine that they might find a lone visitor as a subject of paranoid concern.

She would need a partner and she would need a disguise. One might require some convincing, and the other merely a credit card. Moments later, she pushes her glasses up on her nose as she scopes out the racks of a nearby purveyor of specialty intimate apparel. Instantly a leather harness, similar to the one she wore in Mon-El's dreamscape, draws her eye and her interest. Unfortunately, most of the tools and toys would useless against her, but she plucks a mask, delicately decorated in black feathers from a wall display before making her way to the cash register. Kara laughs to herself as she imagines the look on Snapper's face at the mere notion of turning in an expense report.

The employee behind the counter smiles cordially and asks if she'd like to join their confidential mailing list. Kara considers a moment, nods and provides the email address she reserves for advertisements.

Now for a trip to the hardware store.

A few hours later, just shy of midnight, Mon-El slips quietly into the apartment assuming Kara will already be abed, just as she had been for the last two days. Instead, she awaits, on her knees, hands demurely in her lap, hair gloriously free of restraint, her body naked but for a leather submissive harness.

"What is this?" he asks, a slow smile spreading across his face. His heart, heavy from hours of frustrating training and repeated failure to help Winn and Cisco find the needed data on the crystal, lightens at the sight of her. He hadn't been the only one aching to reconnect.

Kara places her hands on the floor in front of her and bows her head. Unable to resist the magnetic pull of her submissive display, Mon-El approaches, reaching down to first sift his fingers through her silky locks before placing his hand beneath her chin, lifting her face until their eyes meet.

Since returning from the dreamscape, the days have been filled with work and training, and the nights with exhausted sleep. Eliza Danvers had warned him that, considering the length of time he'd gone without Delta wave sleep, it could be weeks before his circadian rhythms rebooted back to normal. But he needs more than sleep tonight. Needs more than to return home only to crawl in bed next to an already sleeping mate, eyes barely able to remain open until his head hits the pillow. He needs connection.

Momentarily lost in his thoughts and fantasies, he isn't aware that Kara has unzipped his jeans until his cock is in her warm, wet mouth, her crystal blue eyes drifting closed as she slowly begins to work the length of his shaft as though it is the most delicious dessert she's ever tasted. Fire races up his spine, his gut tightening as his steel grows and hardens in response to her attentions until her mouth is full of him, her lips pulled taut.

Her hands tease every part of him they can reach: his ass, his thick thighs, and then, finally, the sensitive ball sack behind his cock. "Mmm…mmmm…mmmm," she moans, her head working back and forth, taking him deep enough to gag on the head of his cock.

In his quiet moments Mon-El had wondered where they were left now, since returning from the dreamscape. He had, in his misguided attempt to protect her from his history, forced her into a game with deep stakes. He had treated her abominably, subjugating the softer voice inside and instead listening to his darker half, allowing it to mistreat and objectify her, treat her like a plaything…and nothing more. Emotionally, he kept her at a distance while using her body to slake his unending, animal-like lust for her. He had apologized, of course, once all of his secrets were revealed and he'd gained some measure of control and unity of his once fractured mind. But he still didn't know where that left them…out here in the physical realm.

Kara slides his cock out of her mouth and then begins pumping the shaft with both hands, choking it like the grip of a baseball bat. A dribble of saliva makes its way down her chin and she makes no attempt to swipe at it, too absorbed with her task. "You've been working so hard," she finally says, her voice breaking the sound of his heavy breathing. "I know that you're frustrated, I can see it in your face and in your shoulders. What is it?" Kara asks.

"Everything," he sighs. "The training. But mostly because he hasn't found what we need on the Seal. It's just so…." he raises his hands in fists and, "…Aaarrrrrggggh!"

Aroused by the tension running through every part of him, and the growl of frustration, Kara leans forward and places a kiss on the bulbous head of his penis. "Take it out on me, Master," she beseeches, tilting her imploring eyes up to him.

At first, unable to believe his own ears, Mon-El freezes. "What?" he inquires. "What did you say?"

"You're so tense, Master," Kara replies, resuming her gentle, sensual stroking of his tool. "Take it out on me."

Before she can change her mind, he pulls her from the floor and speeds them both over to the bed, where he deposits her none too gently. Thrilled by his eagerness, she shows the same by lifting her knees and spreading her legs for him, two fingers sliding into her seam to locate her clit. "I'm ready, Master," she tempts, salaciously. "I have been for hours."

His boots and pants are gone in a heartbeat and his flannel shirt he rips to shreds in an attempt to get it over his head. Mesmerized by the sweet, pink offering of her succulent pussy, he drops to his knees at the foot of the bed and tugs her body towards him. "Trust me?" he smirks.

"I wouldn't call you 'Master' if I didn't," Kara replies, her eyes squinting in curiosity. "Why?"

"I'm going to show you what I've learned." Whipping off his glasses, he tosses them onto the pile of his partially shredded clothes. Hands on her inner thighs, he spreads her wider, opening her to him.

"What are you-?" But before she can finish, a thin, near-white beam of heat emerges from his eyes, aimed directly at her crotch.

"I liked it when you were groomed as a Daxamite senya should be," he explains as he meticulously frees her mons of its fine, blonde bush.

"Mmmmm," Kara moans, sucking her lower lip into her mouth.

The beams of heat disappear, and his eyes return to a warm silver, full of concern. "Am I hurting you?" he inquires.

The heat and the tiniest pinpricks of pain his heat vision caused had been titillating, causing her cunt to grow wetter. She loves the idea of Mon-El grooming her to his tastes. "Uh-unh," she shakes her head. Her vocalization is met with a hard slap to her nether lips. "Unnngh! No, Master," she corrects, her teeth on her lower lip barely able to contain her smile. "Not too much pain."

It isn't long before her pussy is as smooth as newborn skin. Kara applauds him and then grips his hair as he begins kissing her folds as if they were the lips on her mouth. She loves watching him as he goes to town on her, but eventually loses her ability to focus when he begins suckling her clit.

" _Yes…yes…yes, oh please, yes,_ " she chants, hips rolling, lost in the sensations he stirs within her. As the pressure builds, his fingers join the hunt for her pleasure, dipping into her wet heat, deep within her. He finds that rough jewel of nerves without having to search and begins to rub. "Fuck!" she cries, rising up onto her elbows. "Oh, yeah!"

Loving the expression of ecstasy on Kara's face, he finger-fucks her harder, stirring the wetness inside of her to new and delicious heights. "Cry mercy?" he asks.

"No," she wheezes, shaking her head wildly, sweat building upon her skin, just as her pleasure builds inside. "No, Master."

"Are you close?"

"I'm right there," she gasps.

"Come for your master," he commands.

"Uuuunnnnnnggghhh," she groans, her head falling back as every part of her explodes. Collapsing back onto the bed, her ejaculate squirts out from between her legs and splashes against Mon-El's face and chest as though she is marking her territory.

With the flat of his hand on her clit and labia, he coaxes a second stream from her, her entire body jerking spasmodically in response. "That's my good girl," he praises. Standing up, he crawls between her thighs, lifts her hips and impales her on his cock in one smooth move before the ripples of her orgasm can even taper off. His head swims with the bliss of her impossibly tight cunt encasing him, clutching him. Here, in the physical realm the tensile strength of her muscles makes her hole tighter even than his imagination, so it doesn't matter that his cock isn't the enlarged size caused by the Callus Band, because it might as well be.

Just as Kara begged of him, he unleashes all of his frustrations upon her willing, quivering body, pumping his cock over and over into her without a thought for gentleness. She rides the storm as best she can, gripping at his back and then sliding them down to cup his clenching ass. Nothing stops him. Not the cracking of the bedframe beneath them that forces her to float to take off the pressure. Not any concern that the neighbors might hear the sounds of their primal grunts, nor slapping of their skin as his pelvis clashes over and over with hers.

And she would have it no other way.

It goes on and on, his energy and frustration seemingly without end. But he's not so mindless that he becomes unaware of her needs, bringing her to the edge twice before commanding her to come each time; and then finally, falling over that cliff himself

When he's done, he's pulls out of her without thinking, out of habit formed in the dreamscape, and sits back on his haunches, his hands on his thighs, now-flaccid cock dangling between them.

"Feel better, Master?" she breathlessly inquires. Her body is slick with sweat, some of it his.

"Much," he sighs, enjoying the sense of peace that now runs in his veins. "I needed that." Glancing down at the globs of cum clinging to her pussy, his breath freezes in his chest. "Fuck! I forgot the condom again! I'm sorry…I just got so accustomed-"

"It's okay," she hastens to reassure him, scrambling to sit up and placing a reassuring hand on his chest. "I'm on The Pill now. You can come in me all you want. And I want that," she says, her voice shifting to her playful, innocent tone. "I want your cum in me, Master. All of it. I like the way it fills me up."

Fisting a hand in her hair he pulls her into a dominating kiss until she melts against him. "Nothing feels as good as coming inside you, Pet –- leaving a part of myself in you."

"I like it when you come all over my belly and chest, too," she confesses. "I'm a slut for your cum. Feeling you come inside is the best, but I like it any way that you give it to me."

"You do?" he asks. There were many times in the dreamscape when he painted every part of her skin with his spunk. He had meant it as a punishment and as reminder that she was nothing more than property – not worthy of being his vessel unless and until he deemed her so. "You didn't find it…insulting?"

"I know you meant to be at the time," she answers. "But…I like it when you mark me as yours."

He's dripping sweat, his silver eyes filled with warmth, and there's something about that that tells Kara she's not done with him yet. Sliding one hand down, she wraps it around his flagging dick, squeezing and pumping it to wake it back up.

"What are you doing?" he questions, nonplussed.

"Getting you hard again," she replies, as if this fact should be obvious. "Short refractory period, remember? You were made for fucking and Rao made me for you." She captures his lips with hers, but it doesn't take long before she cedes control of the kiss to him.

He tests every texture of her mouth with his tongue before biting down hard on her lower lip. "Insatiable whore," he jibes, reaching around to grasp one of her ass cheeks, hard enough to bruise if she were anyone else.

Sliding down onto her stomach on the bed, Kara smiles before taking him into her mouth and sucking him until he's at full strength. Harder than granite, Mon-El grasps her luscious hair with both fists, fucking her mouth for a few strokes. The sounds coming from her throat leave no doubt that she finds his mastery pleasurable.

"You wanted this," Mon-El reminds her, looking at his ready steel after removing it from her mouth. "Now what do you plan on doing with it?"

Sitting up on all fours she turns around on the bed before dropping down to brace herself on her forearms. She wriggles her butt, enticing him like a primate in heat. "My ass is ready for you, Master."

"Are you…are you sure about this?"

Sensing his reticence, she turns back to him and sits up on her knees. "I miss it," she admits, looking innocent and lost for a moment. "The feeling of the hook and ball in there, tied to the collar; reminding me of its presence deep inside me every time I moved. Reminded me, with every movement, of who put it there. I know it was never really there…but I miss it anyway. I looked but I couldn't find one strong enough." Nervously, she picks at her fingernails, avoiding eye contact. "You trained me to be an ass-slut, but I never got the chance. Not really. Won't you let me?" she shrugs. "I want to be your ass-slut."

Cupping her chin in a tight, forceful grip to remind her of who's in charge, he tilts her head up to meet his eyes, "What have I always tried to teach you, Pet?"

After a moment, she replies. "No shame between us, Master."

"That's right. So?"

Kara takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and looks him straight in the eye. "I want to be your ass-slut."

He nods and smiles. "Assume the position."

On her knees, head down, she's surprised and thrilled when he spreads her ass cheeks wide and then gives the crevice the same treatment her mons had received earlier. Meticulously, he uses his laser vision to remove the fine hairs there, and though there are tiny pinpricks of pain in the process, it's nowhere near as uncomfortable as when "Brana" would wax the area during their grooming sessions.

Her first time in the physical realm doesn't go as easily as in the dreamscape. She isn't oiled into suppleness and her superpowered muscles don't surrender with the quite the same willingness as when he first conquered her in the grass of the Old Palace Garden, after chasing her down like prey in the guise of Morgon Ral.

He wants to be gentle in the taking of her ass-virginity, so that she won't change her mind about this. He attempts to lubricate her rim with the remains of their mixed bodily fluids of their previous session. Hoping to loosen the tight drawstring-like opening, he wedges his index finger in there two knuckles deep. The muscles clamp down on his finger hard enough to steal his breath. His cock will find heaven in there, he thinks; either that, or she'll castrate him.

What's life without a little risk?

Teased by his finger in her ass, but not nearly deep enough to satisfy her, Kara rocks back in an attempt to swallow more of the digit. "Uuunngh," she groans, fingers tearing at the bedsheets, frustrated by the lack of fulfillment. "Please?" she begs.

"This won't be easy, Pet. For either of us. I'm going to have to force it, I'm afraid. At least until your rim learns to accept me as its master." Mon-El lays a resounding smack across her ass cheek, as though preparing her backside for more pain to come.

"I like the pain, Master," she reassures. "Put it in me. Please?"

"I know you do, Pet, but don't forget that here...you're stronger than I am. You're damn near crushing my finger already." He yanks his hand free of the vise that is her anus, as if to prove his point.

"Oh," she pouts, realizing that this could actually be undoable. Already, she's had to give up so much by regaining her powers in the physical realm; the lasting sting of a well-spanked rump or bruised thighs from a merciless fuck, the anal hook that she misses like an amputated limb, the titillating knowledge that he can physically overpower her and take her whenever or however he wants, the delightful soreness the morning after being well and roughly used. She can't bear the thought of giving this up as well, without really being given to the chance to try it. Kara refuses to relegate this to the fantasy realm without giving it all she's got. "Would lubrication help?" she wonders, her mind racing for a solution.

"I hate to think there's any part of you that I can't master," he admits soberly, his voice authoritative and decisive. "I'm willing to give it a try if you are."

"Yes, yes, please," she nods, rising on all fours. She points at the bedside table on her side of the bed. "There's a jar of coconut oil in the drawer. That might work."

Stalking over, cock huge and purple with need, he quickly finds the jar and screws off the lid, surprised to find a paste inside that emanates the pleasant smell of a beach vacation.

"Warm it with your hands until it liquefies, and then spread it where you need it," she instructs.

As in all things, Mon-El catches on quickly, first lubricating his cock until it's slick enough that he can barely keep hold of it himself. Next he works the oil into the tissues on and around her rim, before dipping a slippery, coconut-paste-covered finger into her dark recesses, pumping the finger in and out to best distribute the lubricant.

Licking her lips and moaning in pleasure, she relishes the sensations he offers her. The sparking of millions of nerves in her asshole that spreads arousal to every other part of her body. "Mmmmm," she moans again, her rim gripping involuntarily around his questing finger.

"Relax, Pet," he commands. Grasping the toned flesh of one of her ass cheeks, he pulls her apart as wide as he can, while using his other hand to position the head of his cock at her puckered and oiled rim.

"I'm trying, Master," she pouts, bending her upper body down until she's resting on her forearms again, her behind high in the air. "I guess my asshole really needs you to show it who's boss."

Gone too far to turn back now, he has every intention of summiting this peak, no matter the consequences. He can hope that whatever damage that might be done to him, can be healed with the siphoning of some electricity or some time in the sun. "Brace yourself, Pet," he warns, his voice dark and foreboding.

Her arms dig into the mattress, seeking purchase, and her breath speeds in her chest in heightened anticipating. "I'm ready, Master," she tells him.

The oil helps to ease the path somewhat, but her rim is strong, and for the first time he really must work to overpower her, employing his super strength to force his way through the barrier between his cock and the heaven of her tight rectum. He powers through – trusting that she'll use the safe word if it's too much for her – desperate by this time to feel that puckered rim's stranglehold at the base of his cock when he manages to get all the way in.

Finally, with a pop, he penetrates the impenetrable, the thick, round head of his cock, pushing its way past her barrier. In unison they sigh in relief. "Your pucker is a defiant little slut," he growls, with some sense of victorious satisfaction.

"She must be punished," Kara agrees. "Shown who her master is. In no uncertain terms," she adds, darkly.

The dicey part now over, he teases her with just tip of his steel by sliding in no more than an inch, and then pulling out just far enough to feel the resistance of her anus. Nodding in agreement with her, Mon-El reminds her, "It's important, as your master, that I show no mercy in these matters. Defiance will not be tolerated. Do you understand me, Pet?"

"My master knows best," comes her submissive reply. She uses that innocent voice that turns him on, keys him up.

Grabbing a hold of both of his pet's hips, Mon-El grits his teeth and pushes in farther, finding it tighter and more resistant than he even imagined and not at all like the hungry, welcoming channel he had fucked in the garden of their dreamscape. Here, under a yellow sun, the muscles over which she has little control will fight him until he forces them into submission. Not an easy task, but one that must be done, and a challenge that he is now eager to take on. Knowing that the only way to defeat defiance is to meet it head on with iron resolve, Mon-El advances past her resistance with a final, decisive thrust and conquers her at last.

When finally, he buries himself to the hilt, the searing burn of his mastery lights her spine on fire, Kara grabs a pillow and uses it to cover her mouth, drowning out her screams. Her eyes fill with tears that spread onto the pillow case, but not because of her master's roughness. Kara could wake the entire building with the sound of her submission, if not the neighborhood; and that's yet another perk lost to the physical realm; the freedom to scream her pleasure and pain without restraint or fear of judgement. She wonders about Mistress Vise's dungeon/club – wonders if her screams or grunts would be welcomed.

Mon-El hears the screams and senses her upset, her back quivering with the act of shedding tears. As her master, his most important job, even before doling out punishments and reminding her of her place, is taking care of her physical needs. Especially when those needs are about her health. Stilling himself deep inside of her and trying not think about how her tight pucker is spasming around the base of his dick, he gathers his shattered breath. "Are you okay, Sunshine?" he pants, running a gentle, comforting hand down her spine. "Do you want me to stop? I'll understand if it's too much."

She shakes her head into the pillow before lifting up on all fours. "Don't stop," she pleads, pulling forward an inch or so, so that she could butt back against him…on him. "I'm just angry. Angry because I can't scream like I want to." She flicks the tears from her face with a quick swipe of her hand. "In the palace, I never had to worry about what people thought, or who I might upset. We were so free there."

"We'll find it again," he promises, grimacing as, once more, she impales herself upon him, pulling farther away this time. "I'm trying to be a good master here," he sighs, exasperated, before delivering a punishing blow to her backside. "But you won't let me."

"You're the best master," she compliments, impaling herself a third time; undeterred, if not encouraged, by his spanking.

"How would you know, you little brat?" He spanks her again, which does nothing to stop her from using his cock to fuck her own ass.

"I know what I like, and you give me what I need," she responds. "And what I need right now is for you to fuck me in the ass! Master," she adds as an afterthought, but still expecting a reprisal.

"Good save," he chuckles, too humored to ruin it by delivering a punishment this time. Reaching forward, he grabs her by the hair, twisting it around his fist and yanking her head back. "You sure you're okay, Pet?" he asks, slipping back into their scene.

"Yes, Master. You sure you know what you're doing?" she challenges.

Releasing her hair, Mon-El chooses instead to seek his leverage from the straps of her submissive harness. "Let's see how well this harness holds up."

"You break it…you're buying a new one," she tells him.

Choosing to ignore her ultimatum, Mon-El withdraws from her unyielding channel, until only the tip of his cock remains, and with a snap of his hips plunges back in, tearing through the resistance of her powerful musculature. "Ungh!" he grunts deep in his chest as his pelvis smacks against her ass.

"Yeah…so good," she mewls, bliss riding on her voice. "Again."

Twice more, he slowly pulls out before slamming back in, teaching her ass that he will not be denied, and surrender is her only option. Three more parries and three more thrusts and finally the resistance she offers is negligible. The thrill of a well-planned victory rises up inside of him, setting him off and the next moment he's pumping in and out of her dark heat the way a conquering king rides on the shoulders of a defeated people – ruthlessly.

"Uuunnnghhh…unnnggh…unnngghh…fuck," he grunts in time to his hip thrusts. "Gods…you're choking the life out of my cock."

"My…slutty…ass…wants…to…please…you…Master," she rejoins between thrusts, one hand cupping and squeezing her breast.

Releasing her harness with one hand, he snakes down between her legs and fingers her pussy, until she's gasping, her body jerking beneath him. "Your cunt seemed lonely." He squeezes and flicks at her clit until he's falling apart.

"Oh God…oh God…oh…oh…Master," she pants, everything inside of her seizing. When the convulsions hit, they take the last of her breath away and her head spins from lack of oxygen. Her master shoves his fingers inside of her to feel the muscles rippling around them.

"Fuck, you're so tight when you come," he groans, the speed of his thrusts faltering. Mon-El whips his cock out of her ass and picks her up, throwing her down on the bed onto her back.

"Oh!" she explains, taken by surprise.

Grabbing the back of her knees, he lifts her legs, pressing her knees back until they're by her ears, until she's completely upended and exposed for him. Pressing the head of his cock back against the tight puckered hole, he thrusts back inside, driving deep.

Kara likes this; being fucked in the ass, but face to face with him on top – intimate and dominant at the same time. "Yes…yes…yes!" she whimpers to match his tempo, crying out at the way he stretches and fills her. "Feels so good."

Driving towards his own completion, his thrusts grow savage in the end. Leaning forward and propping himself up on his hand, her knees hook over his elbows, leaving her open to him as he pins her to the mattress like a butterfly on display. If she wanted, she could throw him off – throw him clear across the room – but she won't because she finds her satisfaction in submitting to him. He's not sure he understands it…just knows that he's grateful for it.

Glistening with sweat, he leans down to capture her panting mouth with his, stealing what remaining breath she has. "I love you," he croaks, tearing his mouth away in search of air.

"Oh, God! I love you too," she gasps, cupping his bearded face in her hands. "I love you too. Please, baby," she begs.

On the verge, his balls seize up, his ass clenching as electricity races up his spine to spread through every nerve ending from his scalp to his toes. Just at the last moment, his breath stolen from him, Mon-El withdraws his cock from its grasping haven, laying it on her belly as he comes, a wild stream of cum arcing up over her breasts and landing on her chin and neck.

"Unnnnggh!" he grunts, his drive to expel only growing more powerful after the first release. Hips jerking, his balls clash against her mons.

Reaching down, Kara wraps both hands around his erection, frantically moving them up and down to force another ejection from him. "Yeah, oh yeah," she encourages him. "Cover me, Master."

"Pump it, baby," he goads, jerking into her hands again until another stream spurts out, this time spackling the valley between her breasts. "Oh, yeah…. pump it harder like the cum-slut you are," he demands through gritted teeth.

Kara basks in each of his next three emissions as he allows her to pump his cock until he's temporarily depleted. "Oh," she whines, disappointed when his erection begins to flag with exhaustion after the completion of its duties. "No more?"

"Give me five minutes," he chuckles, collapsing on the bed next to her.

Kara snickers. "False modesty doesn't become you, baby," she says, knowing full well she could have him ready to go again in less than half that time, now that she's aware of his true capabilities.

It's not until he rolls over onto his back that he notices the mirror installed on the ceiling. "What in the name of Bask?" he wonders aloud.

Kara shrugs catching his eyes in the mirror. "I liked the chancel's mirrors," she explains. "I thought we could at least get some of that back. I just finished mounting it on the ceiling when I heard you enter the building."

"I'm sure Alex is going to love it," he drawls dramatically. "Not to mention your mom."

"We'll find a way to conceal it, silly," Kara insists, reaching over to pinch him playfully. "Remember the curtains that draped from the ceiling all around my senya alcove?"

"Sure."

"I was thinking something like that – maybe in reds and oranges like the Daxam moonset."

"Keep talking," he tells her, sliding off the bed and disappearing into the bathroom. He returns a moment later with a glass of water and wet washcloth. Listening to her plans for redecorating their loft into a Daxamite den fit for a prince and his Kryptonian concubine, Mon-El delicately cleans her body of his fluids and helps her out of her harness. Pulling back the comforter, Mon-El tucks her inside and turns off the lamp on her bedside table.

He loves it that their sexual interests are so perfectly aligned; that she has little interest in slow and gentle because he is a man of rough passions most of the time. He loves that she wants to be mastered in bed, but most of all, he loves that she doesn't think him weak for showing his softer side when the storm winds down.

"You know…" he says after a moment of just listening to her heartbeat slow, "…we could always go back."

"Go back?"

"Back into the dreamscape," he clarifies. "I overhead Winn saying something about the neural interface recording my brainwave patterns. He suggested that it might be possible to drop back into that dreamscape."

"Would you want to do that?" she queries, surprised that he would consider going back to a place that kept him trapped inside.

"With you?" he smiles, considering the possibilities. He'd like to see her truly indulge her deepest and darkest desires. "I think I would."

"But it was awful for you!"

"I think…if we can finish what we started…then my mind won't have a reason to torture me anymore. I could go back and be in total control."

"Mmmm," she purrs, imagining the possibilities, "like a sexual amusement park."

"It would be nice to have another go at it. Do it right this time, without all the unnecessary drama. It clearly upsets you that your powers in the physical realm limit some of our sexual options. But there…anything's possible. And it's not like it would take any time at all – we could take a month-long vacation in only a few minutes. Everyone needs a vacation from time to time – even Supergirl. Something to consider."

"Something to definitely consider," she muses softly, as he disappears into the bathroom to take care of his own ablutions.

When he climbs in bed next to her, Kara sidles up next to him and curls into his side as he places his arm around her. Her legs tangle with his as they each shift a moment until they find the spot that makes them mutually comfortable. He could close his eyes and drift right off to sleep, his body satiated for the moment and his mind ready for the rest.

"Mon-El?"

"Hmm?"

"There's something I wanted to talk to you about. A favor…."

"Why do you sound so nervous?"

"Okay, so remember when James assigned me the Valor story and we decided it was a good idea because it would allow us to spin the information that gets to the public."

"I have a vague recollection." It seems like decades to him to now.

"Well Snapper wasn't so happy about how that went down, and he warned James that I would have to pay for it."

Mon-El's eyes snap open and he sits up on his elbows. "That little worm threatened you?"

"No! Not like that. At first, I thought he was going to assign me a bunch of fluff pieces or boring clunkers, but when he gave me the assignment this afternoon I realized he isn't trying to put me in reporter jail, he is trying to set me up to fail."

"Well, if I know you, you're not about to let that happen."

"Exactly," she agrees. "He probably gave me the story thinking I'd be too mortified by the subject matter and come running back to beg him to reassign it. He couldn't possibly have known that the assignment offers me an opportunity I can't pass up."

"What's the assignment?"

"There's an S&M club in Brickstown run by a dominatrix named Mistress Vise. Snapper says he has anonymous tips that suggest some very powerful people frequent the club."

"Intriguing." By now he knows that this planet, for the most part doesn't view sex in all of its forms with the same open policies to which he's accustomed. Therefore, he's fascinated by the idea that people like himself and Kara exist, but in a secret underground where their proclivities are shared only amongst one another. It seems both and he and Kara are destined to live much of their lives in secret here. Still…it's better than the life of repression they'd be forced to live if they were on Krypton, so he supposes it's a happy medium. Mon-El wonders if Earth sex clubs are anything like the chancel was at home. He wouldn't mind visiting one.

"He wants me to go undercover and see what I can find out. The problem is…my initial research suggests that no one goes in alone. So…I need a partner. I don't suppose you'd be willing—"

"You think I'd let anyone else play your master?"

A broad, carefree grin spreads across her face. Even in the darkness he can see the bright white of her teeth. "I was hoping you'd say that. I can get it all set up. Do you trust me?"

"Of course," he replies.

They talk in quiet whispers for a few more hours, making plans, before finally drifting off to sleep.


End file.
